They say that the darkness lies. I don't think that is true. We lie to ourselves. We lie to others. In the darkness there is nothing but you and the lies you tell yourself. I have always liked the darkness because that is where I can decide what lies I need to get through, what I need to survive the party I need to go to, the class I will sit through, the conversations that are of things I have no interest in. In the darkness I decide what I will tell myself to get through. Perhaps they are not lies, just stories. Stories that may be true, already lived, told, past. Stories that are not yet true but have the possibility of becoming true because I am telling them. Stories that will never be true, they are not part of a life that I will ever live but make me happy that they exists.
Kneeling by my bed at night, I tell myself these stories. Tonight I imagine a life I do not yet live. The point is not that I sit in darkness lamenting a life I wish I had but to see, with a perfect clarity, a life that I could have, one day. I can see little that is around me and yet out of the darkness comes the faces of my family. My brother who reminds me that I can always start over. My father, with stern features, makes me laugh remembering that even when life is at its worst there is still a joke to be told. My mother shows me that, though it is often hard and can be terribly unpleasant, there is value in living a life of quiet dignity and ferocious conviction.
Other faces appear, forcing me to look at the stories I tell myself and wonder, what are the stories that they tell? Are they the same as mine? What are the stories that got them to be the people I see when the world is dark, quiet, still?
They say the darkness lies. I think we lie to ourselves. I like the dark and what it shows me. As I look out my window at a world where monsters hide in shadows and people whisper in corners, cursing and corrupting the stillness of night, I wonder, what will the darkness tell me tomorrow night, what will I tell it back, what will we show each other?
Kneeling by my bed at night, I tell myself these stories. Tonight I imagine a life I do not yet live. The point is not that I sit in darkness lamenting a life I wish I had but to see, with a perfect clarity, a life that I could have, one day. I can see little that is around me and yet out of the darkness comes the faces of my family. My brother who reminds me that I can always start over. My father, with stern features, makes me laugh remembering that even when life is at its worst there is still a joke to be told. My mother shows me that, though it is often hard and can be terribly unpleasant, there is value in living a life of quiet dignity and ferocious conviction.
Other faces appear, forcing me to look at the stories I tell myself and wonder, what are the stories that they tell? Are they the same as mine? What are the stories that got them to be the people I see when the world is dark, quiet, still?
They say the darkness lies. I think we lie to ourselves. I like the dark and what it shows me. As I look out my window at a world where monsters hide in shadows and people whisper in corners, cursing and corrupting the stillness of night, I wonder, what will the darkness tell me tomorrow night, what will I tell it back, what will we show each other?
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