Getting Dark

Nights are a little longer now and daylight fades quickly.  Dusk creeps in when there still used to be a mild, afternoon sun and my mind starts to walk down the dark hallways that are filled with strange beings. 

They come in nightmares, grotesque creatures that only a mind steeped in greyness and mist can conjure.  I give them names and they speak to me and tell me of fear and running and loneliness. I realize that I know them.  They are after all, not really different from me -- they are who I am when I lash out and howl, when I look at myself and not like what I see.

My hands have become busy, trying to draw them out.  Hoping that by giving them form they will be easier to live with.  

Hammering on tin, I create a cage for a crimson butterfly.  Trapped in grey shadow she waits patiently for sunlight, her delicate wings blood-red against blackened metal.  Garnets stand guard around her protecting her from the night's demons, banishing the melancholy that comes with the darkness, keeping safe the passion that sits still for now, waiting, waiting, waiting for light.

And now I lay me down to sleep, around my neck this talisman I keep.