I want to be with you when the darkness comes.
So that in the darkness I am not alone.
I want to be close to you, in my thoughts,
so the thought of you shelters me
beyond the desert, the ashes and the psalms.

And you will be my solace, as you have been my tenderness.
You have been my example, my template.
And when I moved with my violence
through the flaw in your eyes
it was the flaw I loved in you, and when I saw you
more vulnerable than all Achilles,
you were stronger than me, who could not be hurt.

I'm not frightened of the world as long as you are living.
But sometimes, you have to go towards the source of danger.
You have to welcome it in,
because danger is a guest, and a guest
who may be staying.
And I want to be with you when the darkness comes.

Shelter me with your eyes, and with your children.
Shelter the guest in me,
with all my fearsome strangeness,
and with my cool, seagreen gaze
in which there is not a single flaw.
Shelter me with my darkness, think of me
beyond the silence, the shadows and the stillness.

You are the greatest kindness life has done me.
You were my heart and you are still my heart.
You were my poem and you are still my poem.
I was your words, and I am still your words —
please, speak me, when the darkness comes.

I am frightened for the world because you are living,
and because the world hurts you.
And if I must be these vicious words again, I will be:
I'll hold my guest's eyes open,
but they'll sense the eerie steel in my voice,
with its curious background hiss, almost inaudible,
a faint whiplash you may not even hear,
yet can't stop hearing.

Whoever hurts you, I will demean them.
I will leave them to die into themselves,
I'll smile at them, but there will be
no one in my eyes as their life gives out.
I will watch them die,
because I have been the guest of love.
And, for a few, rare moments, I made love my guest,
and I was peaceful.

They were your moments — I gave them to you
because you asked me for them.
No one else asked me the way you asked me —
they were full of answers, and already beautiful.

Shelter me from this poem. Shelter me from the weakness.
Shelter me from human beings.
I am still your words.
Say me against myself, against my violence.
I want to be with you when the darkness comes.

They still don't understand.
They can have my eyes, and my dead, psychopathic gaze
on which the driftwood rises and the driftwood falls.
They can pull up a chair, make themselves at home,
though I never invited them in,
and they can listen to the sea.
I don't want to be with them when the darkness comes.

I don't want to be with them.
They have no sense of terror — not even
of the terror they are, and bring.
They can't hear the strange, ancient sound in a human voice
like the quick whistle of steel
moving through the air:
they're listening to a lullaby.
And they make themselves at home,
as if I cared for them, and even though
they are not my guests.

So, if they hurt you, and they will, I can't demean them.
Because I am your guest —
even as the darkness falls.

And if I must be these gentle words again, I won't be.
You asked me to be the fraught kindness of this world —
but I hear steel when I hear a lullaby.

I don't want to be with you when the darkness comes.
I'm full of dirt and ghosts.
Sometimes, you must run from the source of danger.

I love you, and I don't want to be with you when the darkness comes.
Because I am the darkness.
I am the words: I love you.

And if I must be these gentle words again —
I won't be.

Copyright © Michael Ayres, 2003.

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