valley...

i was headed down. through the trees, around the rocks, splashing through the cold mountain streams, and into the fading golden light. leaves crunched and sticks cracked loudly under my bare feet and the moss was soft and cool. i gently caressed the lichen spotted trunks as i balanced on their roots in the cooling evening. chill began to settle, and the air became wet with the dew that drifted in and out with each breath. the rocks grew sharper, and the darkness deeper. the cold stars shone on night-blackened leaves as i wandered, darkness settling, stifling hope that flared with the last of the sun's light. now i was lost...and the darkness whispered. speaking of the evils it held in its midst. threatening of the things unknown and nameless. slippery, the leaves underfoot threatened to pull me down onto the sharp rocks and tear the tender flesh of my knees. tears streamed down my face as the moon watched my stumbling deep in the trees. stabbing through the openings in the leaf latticed sky. i couldnt see. i fell. bruised and broken, i lay in the wet leaves in the ditch that cut deep into the valley, cradling my limp form. i couldnt rise for the weight of the the blackness, soft, smothering, suffocating.

i woke to the morning light streaming through the windows. the coolness of the room seemed to echo my memory of the nightdark. stretching, i turned over, waiting for the alarm to sound to signal the official arrival of my day. for that moment of inexistence, where there were no demands, no reasons, nothing but the covers and the crisp morning, i was new. yet i remembered the darkness wrapping me tighter like a cold, black sheet, slowly constricting my chest...and then i knew that somehow, during the night, i had left the ditch. i had left the damp, wet leaves, and i had begun to climb. upways again toward the rising lightness in the east. it was not my own strength that pulled me from the ditch...the handmarks bruising my arms serve to betray the help of another. during the nightdark, he had pulled me out, and placed me where i may be able to once again climb towards the greater light; saving me from the cold indifference of the lesser.

to him: thank you.