I Will Not Go to the Light Having Known Nothing of the Darkness

I Will Not Go to Light Having Known Nothing of the Darkness

I remember the pond behind my father’s vacation house—
the way the rusty earth bled into the still water,
thick with iron and insect hum.
I would kneel there searching for minnows,
hands cupped, jaw locked in the way of my father 
when he didn’t want to speak.
The silt swallowed my ankles.
Cold and tiny stones entered through my soles,
settled in my joints,
and stayed—
became part of how I walk.

No one explained why my father left.
That was the summer when silence became my language.
I lived in a house were the living held their breath—
and I learned to answer questions with nods,
to carry grief and resentment in my throat
without letting it speak.
Even my laughter bent inward,
trained not to echo.

I vowed to sweeten myself,
but only by what fermented—
the bruised fruit left in the bowl
after my mother stopped cooking,
the ache that ripened
in the silence between her movements,
when she’d open the fridge
and forgot why—
the sweetness from things  left out too long,
the sugar that comes after rot.

I swore to soften—too,
but only where the skin split first—
The place that broke when my brother
said nothing at her funeral.
The bruise that rose
when I touched his shoulder.
He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t speak.
He just turned and drove away—
The softness that is not surrender,
but the seam that holds
after the tear.

Memory is not a balm.
It’s a blade dulled by use,
the one I found in my father’s toolbox
after he left—
still sharp enough to nick me
when I tried to close the drawer.
It’s a map folded wrong
so many times
the creases became roads,
and I followed them
even when they led nowhere—

Let the situation fold,
but let it fold around me—
the old blanket my mother crocheted
from leftover yarn,
each knot a story
she never told aloud—
Let it contain me,
not to erase,
but hold what frayed.
 
If my body goes dark,
let it carry the scent of river rock,
the echo of names
spoken once
and never again—
the none of my father,
the middle one of my mother
I never learned to pronounce—
and will never say again 
after she died.

I’ve tasted the bitter honey
grief leaves behind—
it is not golden,
but thick with ash and apology—
drunken mourners after the funeralwho bring makeup flowers
the next day,
thrown in the compost 
for the bees to suck,
not caring for the why 
of teardrops on the sheath.
I licked the spoon
and do not ask why.

My heels still know the loam
of  Tennessee hillsides,
where the dead are buried 
without ceremony,
just a shovel
and a prayer.

Everyday,
I press the dirt down on myself,
feel it give,
then settle.

What I do not remember
still lives in my chest—
not as absence,
but as pressure,
weather before it breaks,
the kind that makes birds quiet
and windows rattle
before the first drop falls.

I will be sweetened.
I will be eaten.
But I will not be erased.

I am what was given,
what was let go,
and what refused to go
in one soft exhale.

And I will not go to light
having known nothing of the dark.