The Corner

There’s a darkness in the corner of my mind,

quiet, patient, and endless.

Not loud like thunder,

not wild like a storm

just there

like a shadow that learned how to breathe.

People say,

“Just shine a little light.

Think positive.

Choose happiness.”

As if light were strong enough

to rewrite the shape of something

that was born from the parts of me

no one ever saw break.

But this darkness

it doesn’t scatter.

It doesn’t run.

It absorbs the light,

drinks it,

swallows it whole

and waits for more.

I keep a smile on the outside,

like a porch light left on

for someone who isn’t coming home.

But the corner remains

cold, unbothered,

untouched by brightness,

uninterested in warmth.

It’s the place where the hurts go

when I don’t speak them.

Where the tears go

when I blink them back.

Where every unhealed thing

builds a room for itself.

And maybe

that darkness will live there forever

not to consume me,

but to remind me

that some parts of us

aren’t meant to be cured

or erased

or drowned in light.

Some shadows stay

because they were earned.

Because they are real.

Because they are mine.