There are things that we know
that we never speak aloud,
like secrets,
but secrets have words,
and words can be spoken.
Not feelings,
because feelings can be unknown,
formless and vagrant,
and even when they are powerful,
they are not knowledge.
No,
there are things we know
about ourselves,
about others,
about the Universe,
which we will never find the words for,
but they exist
all the same.
Dark truths,
of things based in another world,
but we know them to be true.
We each have horrors
all our own,
locked away,
deep in our psyche.
We often tell ourselves,
that these are just
fantasies and figments
of our childish minds,
and that we don’t believe
in such things,
and that buys us,
but some temporary respite
from our terrors,
but it is possible
to believe one thing,
or at least,
to very badly wish to,
and to know
something altogether different.
Perhaps this is why
these things remain
unspoken.
The deep darkness,
that if we all acknowledged
would tilt and skew our reality
so far off its edge,
that it would unleash
nameless horrors,
so unimaginable,
that we don’t even have words for,
much less the capacity to handle.
So we live our lives,
quietly,
and accept the little horrors
of the world that we know,
because in the dark parts
of each of us
reside echoes
of true terror
and malevolence.
Content,
we seldom dream of it,
and its tendrils rarely
snake their way into our world.
The things we believe
suffice to provide enough cover,
that these things we know
remain sleeping to us
and do not wake.
Perhaps on our death beds
we must face them.
Perhaps this terror
could be the “Hell” we read of.
There is light
where there is darkness,
but there are shadows
anywhere the light shines.
HG – 2020
