Infernal Dark
Oct 7 2026
I wanted the hall light left on
door ajar.
As if the monster under the bed
would lie there paralyzed,
confined to the shadows
of infernal dark.
We are visual creatures
who can’t help but believe
that light purifies
darkness defiles.
Just as woodland animals
who depend on smell
sleep more soundly in mountain air
— above the treeline
or an alpine glade.
Or as cave dwellers
with giant ears and vestigial eyes
let down their guard
in the silence of night.
And when we grow up
do we shut the door and draw the shades
because we realize
the only monsters we have to fear
live within
not under the bed?
Avoiding the light
because we might be seen.
Unable to sleep
because we’re too afraid
to see ourselves.
Sleeping alone,
even when someone shares the bed.
Believe it or not, a single word seeded this poem. “Ajar”. It had some salience because it brought to mind an old and very bad joke. The first cars that issued warnings not with sounds like chimes, beeps, and buzzers, but with words (struck us as very futuristic!) would say “Your door is ajar”, and in the bad dad joke it could be heard as “ …is a jar”. Yeah, neither clever nor funny.
Anyway, I thought of childhood bedrooms and the bedtime ritual of nightlights and open doors. From there, the poem wrote itself. The dark ending was just as surprising to me!
I have no idea what a reader might make of this poem. But if I were to offer my take, it could be summed up in 2 short lines:
They say we can never be truly known
as if we’d rather we were.
Ultimately, there are private thoughts we’d never share. Shame, guilt, self-consciousness. Perfect openness is threatening. Perfect intimacy, of not impossible, then nearly so.
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