inspiration from my dearest friend's winterdawnzephyr three poems, darkness (I), (II) and (III), and my church mentor's lecture.
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It takes you by surprise.

You don't see it coming- you can't see it coming. No one sees it coming.

There is no regularity, no system, no format to it. One moment you are still laughing and smiling- and the next, you are choking and suffocating.

It always hits and attacks when you are least expecting it.

It swarms in, out of the corner of your eye, into the room. It takes up the darkest corners and gradually spreads, slithering and hissing on the walls and floors and ceiling, like a large snake moving silently and unnoticed through the room, spitting venom of the deadliest poison.

You open your mouth to scream, to warn the others, but no sound comes out- they are mere wisps of smoke in your world, and so are you in theirs.

It snakes up to you, surrounding you. The dim, black veil crawls up your legs, sending shivers up your spine and your nerves shaking from fright. It takes away your guard, your resistance- until there is nothing you can do but wait, with bated breath, for it to leave.

But darkness does not claim victory so easily. It does not go gently into that dark night.

You cannot resist- it hits where you are most vulnerable, retreating quietly and yet attacking again with its full force when it is least expected. You have no armor, no weapons, no strategy- it manages to beat every single thing you think of, overcome every slim chance and possibility of conquering it, devouring every small shard of hope you harbour desperately in your irrational panic.

It simply consumes every piece, every sliver of your being. There isn't a thing you can do to stop it- it gets exactly what it wants.

It freezes and immobilizes you as it reaches your midsection. You watch, utterly helpless, as the dark, silky gossamer wraps around your wrists and entwins around your arms, looping ever so lightly around your neck. It tightens around your wrist, sheets and folds of the softest velvet shifting into thin razor-sharp, deadly cold blades of pure shadow. It draws first blood as you gasp, adrenaline and lead and pain shooting through you, drops of bloody crimson slipping through your slender fingers and disappears as it blends into the gentle darkness, falling into the endless folds of the shadows now flowing beneath your pale, snow-like porcelain hands.

You try to yell, to scream again, and this time the shrill, high-pitched shriek escapes your mouth, but no one is there to hear it. The echoes roll over and over again in your mind. The silence that answers you roars like thunder, like the raw call of the most ferocious tiger, pure pain and noise in your ears. You instinctively pull your hands up to your ears, but it is too late- the damage is done and irreparable.

You are completely, and utterly, alone- at least, that's what it feels like. There is no one by your side, no one to come to your aid when you need them most.

It streams up your head, immobilizing your mind and instilling in there an emotion you know as well as the back of your hand, but so alien at the same time that it sends massive waves of utter panic and dread flooding and crashing onto you suddenly.

Tar-like fog spills from the corners, the cracks, everywhere, its airy smooth veil billowing into the air. It flows freely throughout the room, filling it with the inky mist you have somehow grown accustomed to. The next thing you know, it is all over your eyes and it obscures your vision and you cannot see- you cannot see a thing-

And soon you realize- there is no use resisting and struggling. It never loses.

Never.

And as you give up your weak struggle and stop flailing around, the cold fire burns and licks your arms and curls around your torso, tongues of freezing flame dancing and leaping and twirling in a magnificent dance that seemed almost magical, almost beautiful, in the cruelest way possible. It swirls around your neck

and the black veil tightens
And

you
are
suffocating

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Short piece that I wrote awhile ago! I've always loved this and finally I have the motivation to post it! I actually completely forgot that Winter also wrote poems on this topic until I finished it and was about to send it to her lolll

What the darkness represents is up to your imagination. My sister says it's stress and depression to her, and another friend says it's sorrow and obstacles she cannot escape from. I didn't write it with a specific thing in mind, so please interpret it with your own creative mindsets!