Your Stories: A Journey

It’s strangeland,
Those cracks; 
They opened,
They swallowed,
I fell through,
I clawed;
With my anger,
With my hope;
Until the darkness ate them too.

So I walked into it,
And finding no ground;
I floated and sank, 
Floated and sank….
I met a listener;
Who asked me who I am,
What my greatest loss is,
What I want to be,
What I fear.

I didn’t know.
So I kept going, 
She gave me biscuits of light,
I ate them.
I buoyanced.
Sometimes my angel said
Wake up N, wake up,
Let’s play,
Build a house.

The darkness breaks,
Light bursts in through the voice
I walk to the light,
The darkness melts,
It concedes to a bubble of light,
Hovers in the background instead,
So I walk for a few hours
Sheltered in a world 
Of cars, small jiggles, imaginary homes. 

Then I go back, 
Submerging into Lovecraft and Eldritch
Tested darkness,
To keep the abyss away.
Sometimes escaping 
Into dreams of hope and strength;
Searching for anger,
Trying to fly 
Away from the hovering darkness.

Sometimes I tested 
The firmaments of darkness,
Finding none to define it
None where I could stop.
And sometimes in my dreams
I fall and awake into pain
But it had no firm 
So my flesh became a dimension
Of darkness.

Sometimes other darknesses 
Floated by with people 
Scrambling to find their footing
I reach out
But my darkness grew darker
Into a dense stillness
So I shouted out
Tell them it passes
We’ll emerge.

There was love
Told me it will pass
Told me to hang on
Held me when it could
Told me it would pass
Told me to hold tight
If darkness has no firm
Then I will wake to myself
Again.

Sometimes I found callous mouths,
Where despair flowed through;
Thick and choking.
Running away-
Plugged them.
Sometimes my companions
Teased me out of darkness 
With hugs and love
With kisses and intoxication.

Darkness tears a window,
For a moment.
And so I walked 
And stumbled;
Losing my way to myself
I graveled for inspiration
To kill the darkness;
And found nothing
To awake to.

But I found my fears
Found places where
I sank.
Found happiness 
Too hard to drink.
Scary faceless people
Whose insides
Were emptier than
Clothes in the closet.

I chewed my emptiness,
Howled in pain;
And the darkness
Flowed away;
Still hovering,
There, a part of me now -
No longer formless,
And I know it
And I know it passes.


- by Natha Wahlang

‘A Journey’ was first shared on this blog and is reproduced here, with Natha’s kind permission