we had to turn on the lights today because it was dark inside. we couldn’t see our arms, let alone our fingers and the tip of our nails. our souls faded through the walls before we could make sense of their shape, and as we walked through the rooms, we wondered how deep in we were, how far we had gone and whether we had missed the door. i stumbled upon the cat, black on black, and nearly toppled over. i poured a cloud of milk in my coffee, to no avail.
it was dark inside today, and we couldn’t separate our voices. the sounds echoed and leveled out in the spaces around us until we could no longer tell them apart. there was no light seeping through the cracks of the windows, no glint, no glimmer, no sun, no sky—just a cold haze engulfing shadows along the way. the air was heavy and heady with the thickness of a worn cloak, covering our mouths and our noses in a blend of smoke, coal, fog and moss.
it was dark inside today, that much we knew. we couldn’t tell our mouths from our feet. we struggled with the buttons on our shirts. we turned faucets with fingers we couldn’t see; we washed yesterday’s faces with eyes closed to the course. we dropped coins and keys and thimbles and corks under our skirts. we missed corners and ran into walls until we turned on the lights and it was not at all dark anymore.