thesheetghost

I am scared of the dark. I am scared of the dark not because of what is in it but rather what it can do, as I am made up of such dim colors how do I know it will not swallow me whole and how do I know that it will not stain your brilliant yellows and blues and greens and how do I know it will not pour itself under your eyes as it has done to mine and how do I know that I will be able to find you in it? Sometimes, I sleep with the lights in my room on because I am scared of the dark but I think the dark that I am talking about here is much more real than the absence of light- I think it is the oil that leaks from the book pages I have left

I think it was early in the winter of my twenty second year that I realized my mother was truly dying. I recall looking out the white frosted window of her hospital room at the afternoon Brooklyn traffic, crisp sunlight illuminating the darkened, filthy snow that lined the streets. The trees were bare and it may have been their lifeless, cold limbs extending into the afternoon sky that reminded me of the impending end to everything, from the finite summers to limited time left in the company of my mom. It should not have come to a shock to me- I of all people, should understand- but this time death no longer came as such a routine. She did n