there's a strange and beautiful light in the building this morning
as i walk down the hall lined with empty offices all dark
on my merry way to my morning coffee
it's dark and storming outside
sweet Summer rain
heavy dark, almost night
and that odd, grey-cast half-light
that is not quite shadow but neither true illumination
filters in through the tinted office windows
into the hall
into my eyes
blending on the way with the white bright from buzzing fluorescents
that draw a dotted line down the halls' ceilings
so that the colors from within and the colors from without
merge
to form a singularly beautiful light that glows in the air
only on days like this
dark rain
morning sky
fluorescent light
off-white walls
and i'm suddenly lost in that ethereal glow
drawn back in time to a memory i had forgotten when i was still young
of the time when i had first learned to love this light
though i didn't know it then
and couldn't have put it to words even so
i was still only learning how to read
and the school day still included a time specifically for "napping"
but i knew that rainy days were different, somehow special
and not only because we would have recess in the gym
but because everything about this strange new world that i was shuttled off to every morning
Looked Different
on these dark rainy days
everything glowed in a strange way
and it wasn't like that when the sun was shining bright through the windows
and most days were sunny
it was only sometimes, only in the once-in-a-while
that the sun would hide behind the darkness
and the wet would come pouring down on us
and the class-room would glow
and i would feel the strangeness of that rare and special light inside of me
my tummy would roll and quiver all day in anticipation of
nothing in particular
my young body would vibrate to match the frequency of the fluorescence humming above me
overwhelmed with exuberant expectation
i couldn't have described it, couldn't have said what it was
i was still only learning to speak
but i knew something was different in my world
i knew it was rare
i knew that it did something to me
i knew that i liked it
and i came to realize that is what the word "beauty" meant
and that is where "love" came from
and though i didn't know it then
couldn't have known it then
now i realize
i've chased that strange and beautiful light
every day since

In my deepest depths, places darker than words worth describing
You lit a torch to find your way out, your eacape from a hell you envsioned
Before you there was no light, never a dream or glimmer of anything but dark abyss
After you disappeared the memory of your torchlight stirred new demons
Mixtures of envy and pain swirled amongst fleeting thoughts of joy and elation
Empty and hollow pains began to mix with the fleeting warmth you so hastily left
A light began to shine in your absence, darker now, more dead than ever alive
Glowing if anything as an affront to the joy it might have once been in life
Each shadow it cast a grim and sickly replaying of memories it couldn't understand
It grows in me daily, this darklight not quite dead and cold, but never warm and loving
This sick abomination of a heart that could have been is your legacy inside me
Every day it cries out in constant torment, everday I feed it lies.

dark is not faster than light
   it is everywhere always

      yet

the dark is negated by light
   always forever everywhere