“When I turn out the light”
the adult reasoned with dramatic patience,
“there are only the same things here
as when the light is on.”
but darkness designed its own denizens
like the creature under my bed
who demanded telepathically
that I align my shoes,
toes in,
precisely half way
beneath the bed
so he could chew on them
instead of eating
me alive.
I surfaced through the sour scum
of realizing I had kicked off
my shoes at the door,
and sprinted through
looming blackness
always just in time.
Lacking precarious rituals
of monsters appeased,
my own thumb on the switch now,
I know dark things are here
even when the lights are on.
