I stand facing the bruised darkness. I already waver in defeat. I clutch two small, round, chalky tablets tight in my fist. I feel the gritty powder as they scrape against each other.
"No." I speak it into the nothing. The hitch in my voice betrays me.
I tentatively take a step forward. The tablets grate, mocking me.
Another step.
"No."
It wants me.
Panic dances beneath my breast.
Another.
The night shifts. It stretches and deepens. The sheets rustle. The springs creak. I am there now.
"…no…" I am small. My defense is smaller.
My lips part. My chest rises and falls in quick, wounded gasps. My eyes close and a tear escapes. The darkness stabs its forked tongue at its salty retreat. I flinch, grasping at the memory of the time before. Chasing it in my mind. When I belonged only to myself. To silence.
The tablets are whispering now. Hollow promises of comfort and care. They are tricksters; they are thieves.
I turn, my back is to the bed, and feel the dark weigh me, measure me.
It grins.
It's won.
I sit, lashes low, obedient, my eyes first cast down, then flickering to the bedside table. My right hand rests on the bed, top down, fingers slowly unfurling. The whispering is louder now. Fevered. Hungry.
The night curls around my waist. It squeezes.
Something brushes my ankle. Soft. My left hand jerks out, crashes into the table. The water glass smashes to the floor in a spectacular fracture of glittering sound. Night's grip tightens possessively.
A movement before me. Something new, crouched. Waiting.
I whimper.
"Now," the tablets demand. They dance, frenzied, on my shaking palm. Defeated, I raise them to my mouth.
Rain begins to tap on the window, slowly at first; a strengthening staccato. It begins to beat the glass, drawing the night's distraction. Such brilliance stabs the air that the tablets startle from my palm, pattering softly to the wet floor.
The darkness hesitates.
It's still there, this thing. It is before me, but not crouched; it kneels.
Warmth. Slow, measured breaths. A flicker of milky light.
The darkness is greedy. I am its plaything. It will not give me up so easily. It licks up my spine, pulling me down, its gravity a velvety black.
I lay my head on the cold pillow. My body is a small, tight c. The darkness coils around me, staking its claim.
The warmth moves. It's closer. I feel it on my face, across my cheek, at my ear.
Slow.
Even.
Breaths.
"Trust in the silent spaces between my words."
The whisper is low, lilting, strong.
"You are safe now and I am here."
Breath against my ear. The darkness listens too.
"Everything will fall back into its natural rhythm."
It passes over my forehead, down the bridge of my nose, against my cheek, to my ear.
"You are not the past. You are not the future. You are this moment, anchored here, and unmovable."
The words are thick and sweet. A honeyed song. My breathing slows. The hammering in my chest begins to subside. The darkness growls in frustration. I roll to my back, my body now a small x, palms up and open. The warmth is above me. It curls beside me, against me.
The darkness slithers back from the bed. It's screaming. At me. For me. I can't quite make out its words.
"Notice the space, its quietness, its emptiness. It's you." My breasts rise as my back arches; involuntary supplication for more. "You are that silence." A breathy laugh. "Isn't that sweet?"
My head rolls towards that voice. My eyes blink slowly, love drunk on the heat by my side. The inky black has softened to a thick gray. It throbs in time with a gentle heartbeat. Mine. Night broods in the corner, spitting and hissing. It is small. It is frightened. But its claws are still sharp and old wounds throb with memory.
"Come back and listen. Come home."
My head rolls back to center. A tear issues down my cheek. It pools in my ear. Warm breath cools it. Dries it.
"Relax into the space. Recognize it over and over until you come to see, it is always here, waiting for you to come home."
The warmth wraps around me. We are a tangled mess of heat. It fills my empty spaces; it kisses my wounds.
The night is gone, banished somewhere…else. I don't feel it flee, but know its absence. There is only heat and breath and heavy sleep. My head turns again. My lashes, flutter against my cheek as I struggle to see. The curve of a bottom lip. The strong, straight line of a nose. Eyes deep and dark. Breath on my mouth.
"Silence and peace. It's what you are."
My lips part, in prayer or in plea, I don't know.
I surrender to sleep's seductive kiss.