afraid of the dark

I'm afraid of the dark
But not in the ways you would expect, no I am not afraid of unnamable monsters that lurk between floorboards and bedboards, of hidden spaces closet-black, of tree-skeletons projected like black and white movies on death-pale carpet, no
I have no fear of the unavoidable, of my vulnerability to circumstance and night predators
I do not tremble by cause of fear for the unknown, the concealed, the shapes that shift unnoticed across walls paling in moonlight
For my fear lies instead within me
Under the layers of skin in the half-light through the window blinds
In my eyes filmed over with night stuff
In my hands that reach for something they recognize in the blackness
My terror is in me, in my choices influenced by the shadows of midnight, puppeteered by a loneliness that develops like a sheet photo in a darkroom sometime around two a.m.
And this is the fear of it, when all is stripped of ghosts and shadows and tricks of light
How does one prepare oneself against their own slight of hand?
How do I run from a thing which will inevitably be neither in front nor behind?