I am not a light worker, not a seeker of the sun.
Yes, I like the warmth on my skin on a cool day
Yes, the sun is beautiful as it glistens on water
as it reveals texture and color in granules of sand
the textures of tree bark and leaves.
But I am not one who works in the sun,
who is comfortable in full light.
I am comfortable in the darkness, I stay in the shade.
I lurk in archives and cemeteries, looking for books
with faded and dusty pages, looking for bones
beneath the soil, delighting in grime and murk
Looking for mushrooms, the fruit a sign of dense
mycelial networks beneath the surface.
Rotting leaves in fall and winter, blanketing the soil
covering the muck and mud of a rainy forest trail.
I long for darkness, for the cover of night
that allows for vulnerability without full revealing.
I delight in the flap of batwing and the slick slide
of snails and slugs as they leave their trail across the dirt path.
Rotten stumps, overgrown with moss. Rich soil home to beetles
and worms and spiders, burrows for badgers and moles,
frogs and lizards wiggling into the dirt to hide from the scorch
of the sun and find the damp warmth of dark depths
I work in the darkness, and sit with the truths others
try to light their way out of with the glint of silver linings.
I sit in dark depths, and as I sink further into darkness
I greet my demons and offer to make them coffee.
Maybe I’ll offer them a whiskey shot, even though I don’t
Keep liquor on hand these days, in case they like the burn.
I’ll drink black coffee and enjoy the earthy aroma.
I’ll savor the bitterness and taste the rich notes that emerge
when we let ourselves revel in the dark and live with realities
that many try to leave six feet underground.
The grave is appealing, the depths of the earth call to me
but each sojourn into the dark night finds me back in the day,
again, flinching against the glare of a sun that does not understand
that too much light dries the soil and leaves it brittle, rigid, breakable.
Each sojourn finds me, still, pushing through the earth, though it becomes
heavier each time, though, each time, it becomes harder to come into the light.
Ink and Vein 