Night.

In my mind, night symbolizes bad things
Dead as night,
Things go bump in the night,
Missing each other like ships in the night,
Thieves in the night,
“A one-night stand?”
Lady of the night,
“Oh my God! How can you sleep at night?”

It is universally known that monsters come out at night
They lurk in the closets of kids everywhere
But closet monsters with their reaching claws, twelve eyes, four arms,
And purple fur aren’t as scary as you.
In the dark corner of my room by the lamp that was my mom’s
When she was growing up
Did you put your hands on her, too?

I look up and
Coming towards me
a gangrene riddled zombie
Arms outstretched, a child whining for candy
Hot mouth on my skin, saliva in my face
Tongue like tentacles wrapping around me and
I fall into that dark, unfeeling place

Night is when bad things happen to good people
When too-young children lose their too-young innocence,
I try to explain to my mom the things you did
Why I’m chasing light
She says I’m lying because you’re her father
She knows you, and you wouldn’t do that to her
I tell her it was night-time she says,
“Maybe it was too dark to see who it was.”

“It wasn’t, mom!” I scream.
Hot pokers in the form of hot tears sear my red cheeks
When she turns away from me

It was dark, that night
But not so dark that I didn’t know you that night,
That night when you took me and crushed me
And I didn’t have a choice.

But it was you.

A gangrene zombie hiding in dark corners of my bedroom.