Poem: Blackness

Blackness

Blackness there is only Blackness.
I can see, hear, feel, sense nothing,
there is nothing to sense.
It changes to grey.
Now there are shapes, signs of others,
but I can't see them — senses are so dulled.
Now if I try I can see light but I also see death.
On the other side of my blackness there is light people, lives.
I see what it is like to live, sense, love.
Can almost touch it but I am trapped by fear, in my Blackness.
I would rather not know what is on the other side.
If I can't have it I want my blackness again.
It is Blackness but it is mine.
Is my blackness self imposed?
—perhaps, I don't know.
Blackness does not let me know.
It is closing around me,
I am changing — am I only dying,
or am I turning into Blackness.

Shimara Carlow

From GLW issue 272