"You stole what was left of my heart."

Ecco (here it is), from the Latin ecce or eccum, is about presenting a person, thing, or idea and inviting you to perceive it at the very moment it appears.

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It's coming.

The darkness.

A summer sunset.

End-of-the-day rays of sunlight filter through thick cloud and caress my face as I sit in the car with the windows down, filling me with a short lived feeling of warmth, before the cloud sweeps past, briefly blocking the dissipating light.

The golden, pink and peach splashes that painted the sky are slowly but surely evaporating.

The afternoon bleeding into evening.

Night waiting patiently around the corner to kill the last remains of the day.

In the still August air I light a cigarette, inhaling the toxins before breathing them back out and watching as the curling smoke poisoned the air around me.

Carbon monoxide mingling with oxygen and nitrogen.

Evening has always been my least favorite part of a day.

Something about it, and watching the sun dip below the horizon has always felt like a loss of hope.

It's always been intertwined with death.

(Ever since the day I learned what mortality is, as I witnessed a bird get shot and plummet, backlit by a setting sun when I was three. A hell of a first memory).

When I learned that the earth's natural state was darkness, that made sense to me.

It still does, literally and metaphorically.

Neither can exist without the other.

Both offer solace in their own ways, yet neither are completely safe.

There can be no light without darkness, no darkness without light.

That is something I have grown to recognize in everything.

Including myself.

Metaphorically, the darkness that dwells in my mind and my memories, my dark side so to speak, is something I can't escape from.

Those things are along for the ride with the light parts, whether I like it or not.

It's just that I'm tired now.

I grew tired of running from them and myself a long time ago, and chose awareness instead, because unlike some people I've known, I've never really mastered the art of denial.

I've always had a debilitating fear of void like spaces, and I can't sleep without some light.

On the other hand though, I love the night.

Everything feels magical, being awake and active during the night always feels like being part of another world.

At night, guards are let down, instincts are acted upon.

Everything is infinite.

Or feels it.

Until the sun rises, dawn melts into day and the light returns.

The same light that can be a smokescreen for me.

An illusion of comfort meant to render us unaware of the visible shadows and shady corners that lengthen steadily as the hour grows later and races towards the inevitable.

(When I remember how the bird dropped, a dead weight, the thing that stands out most in my mind's eye is the blazing sun at its hottest as it dipped closer to the horizon casting light on the way the bullet tore through the bird's body).


Despite my fear of those void like spaces, the sense of apprehension they bring, the dark of the night can be an ironically cathartic hiding place for those who are cognizant of thing they sometimes wish they weren't.

A dog barks in the distance, its haunting echo pulling me out of my thoughts.

With the sun's retreat, the street is beginning to come alive again since I wandered off into the maze that is my mind.

I cast a glance towards the sky, which is now devoid of color.

It's a moonless night.

(Just like the night I was born).

It's here.

"Now it's dark," I think and my eyes meet my own in the rear view mirror,

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non-fiction

I'm part Italian, so I was excited to see the prompt for this week. I wanted to tackle it both literally and re symbolism. This is a memory of me watching a sunset in someone's car during a seriously horrible time of my life.

"Now it's dark." is a quote from one of my favorite movies, Blue Velvet (1986), directed by the legendary David Lynch. It is a line repeated by an antagonist and its meaning is that of being comfortable with the darkness in yourself. This resonated with me from when I saw it. Obviously I refer to memories of trauma and PTSD here and that is how it resonated with me, whereas the movie antagonist definitely had some worse issues lol, but the point is the same.

I was indeed born on a moonless night. Forever envious of those born under a full moon!