In The Dark

What Is In the Dark?

The absence of light does not mean
the presence of darkness.
Nor is there death
as soon as the lights dim,
unable to breath,
a child afraid of what is not there.
Just because you cannot see the moon,
does not mean it is missing
and we need a search party to find it.
Nightmares are not unpicked roses
wanting to will themselves into luminescence.
There are not fireflies inside our lungs.
Light did not ricochet over the horizon.
We all close the curtains
in the imagined house
where the attic has the boxes
we put away,
each with dark secrets we sooner forget
and we did.
The secrets are laughing at us.