Me and the darkness have been constant companions
Ever since I can remember.
Neither friends, nor bosom buddies.
It is just that we have always been together.
I do not fear the dark…I respect it.
I know of its misrepresentations…
The dark cellar…
The dark of night…
My dark skin…
Dark moments…
The traumatic and negative elements of my life.

But I have also used the darkness.
I have hidden away in the darkness…
Sheltered in its shadows…
Reflected in the darkest moments…
Celebrated the darkness of my skin colour.
Is a petal on a flower any different,
Just because you cannot see the colour in the dark?
If there was no darkness…
Would there still be lightness?
Just as it is true that not everything in the light is good…
Then I know that all that is dark is not all bad.

I know what the darkness can do…
The hold it can have over people…
The fear they can have for it…
But the darkness holds no fear for me.
It is just there…I am used to it…
Habituated to it…
Neither comfortable nor uncomfortable in it.
Me and the darkness…
Our journeys are together set …forever.
We will always be unwilling bedfellows…
But we will always be inseparable.