I cannot welcome reality

I've noticed a bad habit lately. I welcome in the world, some kind of normalcy, and the minute it leaves my doorstep, I hurry back to the dark liminal space that is unreality. I am drawn to it even stronger because I tried to leave it behind.

Welcoming in normalcy or light causes me to retreat because I know what is in that light. It's all the things that lurk in my trauma. The dark has always been safe for me, even as a child who feared it. The night was safe because no one uninvited could hurt me then. No one sought me out in the dark, even as an adult. Shut away in my bedroom with nothing but the glow of a television or computer screen, with all other lights off, I was safe and it was quiet.

I fear normalcy. I fear the light. I fear giving another chance to all of it. So the liminal darkness beckons me and I sink into it even more. I do not feel good where the light is concerned, nor when normalcy or happiness chance my doorstep.

I am left with a muscle memory of foreboding. Of Warning. The tarot cards tell me to embrace change, that I am stuck and I need to untangle myself from this muck — from these tendrils that hold me back here in this unreality. But this dark place is home. It is safe; it's the safest haven I have. Alone here, with my head family to surround me, I know nothing can hurt me. Even my shadow man and the beings that scare me are harmless. They simply want me to understand them. I belong to them now.

No, I can't welcome normalcy. I can't welcome the light again. The call of the darkness is too strong and it knows where I belong. It's not out there. It's in here in isolation. There are no worries that way.

The normalcy and light that crossed my doorstep did not bring me strife. It was not a negative experience. Yet, my body recoils from them and my mind spins in all directions. It tries to find a way that they were bad, or deceiving.

I am ruined. I am stuck here and I don't mind. It is safe here.

©2022 Shane Blackheart