Slug Life

(Currently Untitled Stalactite, from The Barking Wall, 2011)

Darkness never lost it's evil, it's crawling with demons, all things scary dwelling within, -ness. I made the transition from a child to a tween to a teen to a young adult without darkness ever changing. Growing up my mom thought it would be better to sleep in the same bed as my sisters, and since I had two I often switched between the two, or when one was gone there was always the other. I'm better sure my mom was careful of who was sleeping over at who's that night because my sisters were never both out, both gone, both leaving me alone in bed. When my oldest sister left the house after highschool and my older sister started dating on the regular, often having some boy over, or she would sleep over at his place I'd sleep in my parent's bed, with my parents. My dad snores, and I'm pretty sure my mom does too (sorry, mom), but that was fine, I had someone there beside me, protecting me from the darkness. When I was old enough I'd have the girls I was dating sleep over, it wasn't every night, they'd have to lie to their less-lacked parents about sleeping over a girlfriend's. Those nights, spent with someone outside of my family were different, better, but different, perhaps not the same comfort, something missing, and the part of another person that you never grew up with, that stranger part of them, was in the bed with you. Each girl sleeps differently, some more inviting than others, some fitting alongside your body better. Some would always put your arm to sleep, you'd take it, wake up in the middle of the night without an arm, and some just fit perfectly. I remember having "snuggle buddies", those few that were always down to sleep over, without sex, without any chit-chat, just sleep, holding each other, all night long. I often wondered if they too had spent their lifetime sleeping around, finding a bed that isn't so alone, hidden in the darkness.

I can count the times I slept alone in bed, not enough for someone my age, and over the years I've learned to accept that I slept in the same bed as my parents until my highschool graduation when I moved out. Those first few months, looking for friends, and people OK with just sleeping in the same bed as you were hard, the darkness seemed to grow more menacing. I've become good at asking, and convincing, people to sleep over, sleep in the same bed, it was either that or the darkness, something I still can't get over, something that still remains this meaningless demon haunting me in same effect as the day I was born. Now as an adult, I look at the darkness the same as I look at sadness that has always been there, I can analyze it, demythtify it, breaking down my emotional response to a chemical reaction, seeing the full scheme of cause and effect, and once I understand why I am sad, what darkness is, and the fear it produces, it starts to have a face, I start to know it better. My imagination ceases to be, it is no longer wild, but explained by reason, in a logical state of mind, I breathe easy, take each step one at a time, and enter the void, the cavity of darkness, the part of me never complete, something left undone my entire life.

Slugs. Yeah, slippery, holding on to each other, becoming one, fitting within, like pieces of a puzzle. I think we're both puzzling pieces, but when we're together it all somehow makes sense. The darkness falls, it is late Autumn, it get dark sooner these days, the sun is far from it's happy place it has in the summer, and it now burns the sky, is absent, and is mysterious. I can smell something that enters my nose, fills my lungs, and enters my bloodstream, it is intoxicating, it smells beautiful, something that lasts all night long. My fingers creep, I hold to what is faintly before me, in the faintest of light, I watch endless, eyes closed, sleeping away, beauty, beauty, a moment captured only in that state borders on dreams, I am barely here, I am drifting away.