The Darkest Nights
I never thought I’d cry on a park bench. Not me. Not the one who always seemed to have it together, always knew the right thing to say. But here I am, staring at cracked pavement and rusted swings, and the tears just won’t stop.
The United States is not united. Were we ever? Maybe. Maybe there was a time we were fooled into thinking we were. Or maybe we just ignored the cracks, hoping they wouldn’t spread. But now it’s impossible not to see lines drawn so deep they’ve become trenches. Everyone on one side or the other, yelling across the divide like they’ve forgotten we’re standing on the same ground.
It’s exhausting, isn’t it? This endless noise. Everyone shouting their truths, everyone convinced they’re right, and no one really listening.
I can’t help but wonder when we got so lost, when we started looking at each other and seeing enemies instead of neighbors. When we stopped believing that love not anger, not fear, but love was the greatest thing we had to give.
I look around at the world, and it feels darker than it ever has. Like an eclipse is swallowing everything good and bright, leaving us in shadows we don’t know how to escape.
But maybe that’s the point of the dark. Maybe it forces us to see what we’ve been too scared to face. Forces us to stop pretending everything’s fine when it’s not. Forces us to look in the mirror.
I think about those mirrors. About the face staring back at me every morning, tired and worn, and how easy it is to avoid the questions I don’t want to answer. Have I done enough? Have I stood up for what’s right? Have I loved the way I should?
The answer is always no.
Because it’s hard to love, isn’t it? Real love. Not the kind in movies, but the messy kind. The kind that makes you forgive someone who hurt you. The kind that makes you see the worth in someone who doesn’t see it in themselves. The kind that makes you take a good, hard look at yourself and decide to be better.
“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.” Those words hit differently now. It’s easy to talk about change. It’s easy to say the world needs to be better. But doing something about it? That’s the part we’re all afraid of.
Because change isn’t comfortable. It’s painful. It’s messy. It’s looking at the people who scream at you across that divide and realizing they’re just as scared as you are. It’s realizing that the only way we climb out of this darkness is together, even when we don’t agree.
And it’s realizing that love...fragile, fleeting, precious love isn’t just a gift. It’s a responsibility. To see someone else’s soul and remind them of their worth. To let someone else see yours, even when you’re afraid they won’t like what they find.
I think about the little things: my neighbor who brings food to the single mom next door, even though they argue politics like it’s a sport; the librarian who stays late so every kid has a warm place to study; the man I saw on the news who carried strangers to safety during a flood. Heroes, all of them. And not a single one wears a cape.
The rain starts to fall, soft at first, then harder, until I’m soaked. I don’t move. I just let it fall, washing over me, carrying away all the fear, the frustration, the anger.
We’re falling apart. I know it. You can see it in the headlines, in the way people look away from each other on the street. But what if falling apart is the only way we can come together?
Maybe things have to break before we can see the pieces that still matter. Maybe we have to lose the light before we remember how to find it. Maybe the soul has to feel its worth, not in the easy times, but in the hard ones.
I stand, dripping, my hair clinging to my face, my breath sharp in the cold air. I don’t have answers. I don’t know how to fix this broken world.
But I know this: Love will always be the answer. Not hate. Not fear. Love. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
Because the darkest nights? They’re the ones where the stars shine brightest. And maybe, just maybe, we’re not falling apart. Maybe we’re falling into place.
_______________ A knock on my brain._____________________
_______________There once was___________________________
_________________a closed door.__________________________
__________________Now its open._________________________
____________________There is a box._______________________
_______________________A ribbon comes off,________________
_________________________once tied neatly in a bow,__________
__________________________________ and the lid is off._______
_______________________________There's bubble wrap,_______
_____________________________there's secrets.______________
__________________________The questions come.____________
_______________________I think and think._________________
_____________________I think of excuses. They ask,___________
________________________"was it really a joke?"______________
__________________________Of course not, I think, and,_______
____________________________"do they know?" More excuses,__
____________________________________"my mental health?"__
_______________________________and now the bubble wrap___
_____________________________it's unraveled,______________
________________________________and everything's...________
__________________________________falling apart.__________
Then,__________________________________________________
I realize,________________________________________________
I just need to be led to His path,_____________________________
I look back and see, and wow, it's already there, behind the secrets and worlds influence on me...___________________________________
Silver linings
Life had been bumbling along for a while. The pandemic had settled like a heavy blanket on our already insular lives, snatching any rare moments of spontaneity, dampening the wick of creativity, freezing off the tender shoots of joy. Life had become a relentless routine - work, grocery shops, food, TV and video games. There were no alternatives to the choices - we were mandated by the government to stay inside - on pain of a large fine.
I'm not sure when the numbness started to creep in, but I think it predated even the pandemic. I started crying in the shower. And when I took long walks on my own. I teared up in the moments in between, when I didn't think anyone was looking. I shied away from the screaming pain and buried it beneath more cheerful thoughts. Perhaps that's when the numbness started.
Two years into the pandemic I was a woman sleep-walking through her life. One mask for the outside world to prevent the spread of the virus, another for at home, to prevent another argument that I didn't have the energy to fight. I pretended everything was OK, I did it so much, that sometimes I even believed it.
But I was lonely. Lonely at home with my partner, lonely in the room full of people at work, lonely on the bus and in the shower. I felt like a startled turtle, who had retreated into it's shell after a shock. As hid the pain away, my ability to feel joy winked out. My smile disappeared, not just behind my mask, but from my eyes too. I walked the heavy tread of the condemned.
The first slap came from work. The place I was the happiest, if I was happy at all. That was where I had meaning, where I had the ability to impact the world in some positive way. I poured myself into that job as if I were a bottomless jug of water, slaking the thirst of a group of camel riders who had crossed the desert and become lost.
Only to discover I was worth less to my company than a younger male colleague who did exactly the same job as me. My sanctuary, my safe place, held the first dagger. They twisted the knife when they refused to give me equal pay, driving home just how unvalued I was. Oh how it stung. But if they had treated me just a little better I might have stayed.
The second slap was the implosion of my relationship. I thought I'd found my person, that I was done with the indignity of dating. But something had broken long before and as the years drifted by, I felt more and more at sea. I tried everything to make it work. I had been taught as a child never to give up on a difficult man. I had bent and bent until I broke and still it wasn't enough. Everything was my fault and my responsibility. I was asking for too much. If he been a little kinder, I'd probably still be with him.
The final straw that shattered the illusion completely, came from my landlords. Greedy as they were, they raised the rent by 31% in one hit - far beyond what I could afford. If they had been a little fairer - I'd still be living there.
I thank them for their callousness and cruelty - for I thought so little of myself back then, that I needed that level of contempt, to finally realise I wanted more for myself than the scraps. My life fell apart in a spectacular way - but that was the first steps to it falling into place.
The Fall
I think I know when things are falling apart.
When the grounds falls under me and I fall.
Fall like the way that the black is coming,
but I don't know where the ground is underneath it.
I know there's going to be pain when I break my fall on it,
but I only wish I knew when time was going to stop feeling like it's crashing around me.
She's there. Somewhere above me.
I let go of her hand,
to spite her and in spite of myself.
My stupid, angry, idiotic self.
And I can see the pain and fear in her eyes.
She's screaming at me,
and it's like her voice is in my ears.
Shaking my head as if telling me to wake. The. Fuck. Up!
Rattling it until everything else around me is drowned out.
She hates me.
I don't think anything else in life has ever made my blood run cold,
but those words right there were the crushing moment when I collided with my 'ground.'
When I bottomed out before the heartache blossomed up out me,
and I think I might have screamed at myself somewhere in between to stop.
"Stop!"
"STOP!"
"STOP!"
But I fucking didn't. Why couldn't I fucking stop?
Why couldn't I shove my goddamn foot in my mouth before she ran out the door, and I suddenly started to wonder if she was coming back.
My kid asked me if she was going away for good.
"Not this time" is what I wanted to tell them. To tell myself, but inside, I was shaking. Terrified that she might not.
Holy- fuck. WHAT have I done?
My foot taps against the floor.
My head starts to split with an ache that I can't drown out anymore.
My eyes start to water until they itch and ache, and I'm sure they're pink but not from some fucking whiff of a special something that I used to take.
Ah shit. I've fucked up.
Oh god, I've really really fucked up.
---
I called her name.
No answer.
I put the kid to bed, and I walked around the house quietly.
Stupidly, I know. I know she left, but I'm still looking for her.
God, what have I done?
"I deserve this."
At least, that's what I keep telling myself as I push my palms into my eyes, trying to blot out the headache.
"I deserve this."
"I deserve this."
"I deser-"
"Please don't leave me." And my voice chokes out a sob into the space beyond me, where my words can't leave my aching head.
I love her. I love her so much, and I tore her heart apart with my hands and watched myself do it.
What kind of monster am I to chase my own love from my arms? From our house?
I'm a monster. An awful, terrible monster. And I can't forgive myself. I don't know if she'll forgive me, but in me aches the need to be. I'll beg for her to forgive me. I want to everything to bring her back, but she needs space.
Oh, what have I done to myself? To her?
I only wish it hadn't been sixteen years ago.
I never saw her come back.
At least, not to the same person. Not to the person who chased her out.
I hugged her close to me after she walked in the door.
When she let me.
I hugged her the very next night, so tight, I could have sobbed my eyes out for days.
I scared the shit out of myself, and maybe that's what I needed.
Maybe that's where I needed to land. On the fucking ground,
out of my stupid little 'head' nest of sovereignty.
Because what stupid idiot leads a country alone?
A dick-tator that's who.
And he is not who I am right now.
And so I hug her tighter.
Because she lets me.
I kiss her lighter,
because she's tender and weak.
I made her that way.
I can give her the power back I stripped away.
And for sixteen years on after that.
I give it back.
I give her back her strength.
I remind her how much she's done.
How she's so strong.
And I'll never take that away again.
I fear that if I ever were that monster again,
I might kick my ass, because no man alive will ever break her heart again.
Not me. Not any asshole. No stranger. Not even her father should he ever say anything against her.
I love her. Love her tenderly.
If I didn't love her, I'd be the death of me.
Of everything we are together, and everything I ever could be.
Because she'd have me fall.
Fall so far that I could realize what it felt like to hit the Earth.
To know the ground beneath me isn't going to break beneath me.
It'll catch me, in it's cold, hard, unloving embrace.
And I'll break apart on it, without being able to see her face.