What Comes of Darkness

My biggest fear:
walking into a silent black room
flipping a switch & finding
someone staring back at me

I have relived this nightmare
in my head since I was 7
The worst is waking up
in the middle of the night

when wind turns to breathing
& clocks make sounds of sucking teeth

My friends all think this fear is rooted
in some deeply repressed memory
Maybe a burglar outside my window
or a game of hide & seek gone wrong

My biggest fear:
waking up like my father
pressed against the thigh
of a woman I do not love

There are bodies I have slept
next to comfortable as if I
were alone
There are love poems I have

written to girls I am
afraid to call

It has become hard to sleep
well when sharing a bed
Too many strange sounds
shifting in places I cannot see.

— Langston Kerman