My Fear of the Dark - The nothingness - WIP

My Fear of the Dark - The nothingness - WIP - Poem

My fear of the dark

The nothingness

Being carried home by Derek,

my hand clamped over my eyes

so the dark couldn’t get in —

that black nothingness that knew my name.

The loft hatch watching.

The landing breathing.

The dark too loud.

(It dropped like a portcullis, trapping me.)

No escape down the stairs.

One of my earliest fears.

I still fear escape routes today —

lifts a hard no,

stairs the only way out. All of it rooted here.

Did I imagine vampires and were wolves,

or was it simply darkness —

the way it consumes you without needing teeth.

If only it had been fantasy.

If only the fear had been pretend — my imagination, not my truth

Then school:

learning that humans had made a weapon

that could destroy the world.

Nuclear power as curriculum.

A project that became a nightmare.

Me climbing the wall.

A week excused for “not coping,”

as if coping was ever the point.

I remember the fear like yesterday.

The TV wheeled in —

Sunshine Gate,

wireless radio,

a learning device for children —

and my childhood ending

in a single sentence broadcast to the room.

Destruction as human nature.

Running out of school.

Dragged back in.

Escorted to the library for the day.

Male teachers = danger.

My ND wiring couldn’t compute it —

I didn’t know caring or teaching could come in a male form.

The Whitley years: divorces = many men = guard up.

Instructions given.

Instructions lost.

Repeat.

REPEAT.

My brain skipping like a scratched record,

unable to take on board the information,

mistaken for stupidity.

(Auditory processing.

Working memory differences.

Visual learning dominance.)

Made to feel stupid

until my skin thickened

into armour —

something adult,

something no child should ever have needed.

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