Title artwork taken from “Black” by C. William Giles. Click image to purchase novel or click here to visit the C. William Giles Dedication Page.

In complete darkness
No light
Or air
Just vacant stare I cannot seem to shake
I’m wide awake
Yet feel as though I’m trapped within a nightmare
No more here than I am there
Guess that makes this limbo
Out on limb, no inkling how I got there without sinking
Second thinking everything that once felt cast in stone
Quite aware I’m not alone
That there are those who see me
But right now I can barely see myself
Not about to blame my mental health for this predicament
Mine is not a case of self-imprisonment
Have been my own worst enemy and now I am a friend to me
Have learned my lessons, solved my puzzle, taken off the stifling muzzle
Done my stint with entropy
Guzzled down home truths aplenty
Suffered monumentally
Toughed out every snuffed out dream and been to hell and back again sequentially
Though never once intentionally
My actions have been reckless in the past
Yet presently I’m fading fast with not one feckless tendency
Allegedly the pain will pass
I know such to be true
You know me, I’m hopeful and will be so right up to the very last
Still I stand in complete darkness
Lost and all at sea
Cannot gloss this over as disclosure means I’m feeling
Numbness is uncomfortable
Denial not an issue
End of days is not a phase I’m willing to submit to
This is not a cry for help
Not the kind to time my yelps
But feelings must be felt before such time as I make sense of them
This is where the Crimson Quill I wield is filled with deepest red
This is where it spills and every solitary drop distilled is bled
This is where I lay my head and feel low tide wash over me
This is where all hopes and dreams defy the filthy hands admitting openly of worst laid plans to grope at me
This is where I wrap myself in clover leaf
Still in darkness
No quick fix
My heart is totally eclipsed
One simple click from giving up and tossing in the towel
Not that I intend to lend the end an ear, will hear of no such thing
Crystal clear the answer to conundrum lies within
Hurting badly
Agony is only ever worsening
Burdening my soul with the urgency of heaping coal
However, I will never ever seal my one true breathing hole
Please forgive that just one time
I see no happy ending
As once I’m finished
I shall read this back
Maybe I’ll fade back from black
For having fed the beast its slack
Could this prove an economic tonic to the chronic
Perhaps
If cats possess a ninth life then I’m on it
Never less than desperately honest
Heart has never been so broken
Life has never felt so token
Every ventricle is open
Please just let me bleed
Please let me be seen
Even when I’m in the shadows reeling
Makes more sense to entertain this feeling
Taste each pain and strain my eyes
Search for hopeful sunrise
Take a leap and grab it
Hold on tight
Have faith and blind that others might just make free flight a habit
For now, if it’s okay to go against the very grain of me
And leave this incomplete
I shall remain
In complete darkness

Richard Charles Stevens