Spilled Ink from the Vault

i.
There’s a darkness in me but she, 
like so many other facets of the diamond I’ve become
under pressure, lives behind masks and veils.
She exists as a duality; two side of the same coin.
I remember meeting the one in twilight reveries
before I was old enough to know her name,
but even then I knew both that I was desperate
to be her kindred spirit, and that I must speak
of her to none. She did not scare me.
On the contrary, I craved her, though not for the first time
I assumed I must be pathology.
Something about me was other, and even then 
I knew instinctively that to be other was jeopardy.
The flip side of the coin? Ah, she is darker still.
I met her first in later childhood, and to this day
I wonder if she haunts her first victim, but hold
on to a hope that she and I were not paved into the foundations
of formative memories that might now be classified as trauma.
And then, later, on the rolling hills of Sofala, 
the jillaroo was surprised not at her ability
to discipline, but at the warped sense of fulfilment it caused.
(She’d almost label it a pleasure.)
I remember that moment, not for the pleasure,
but for the fear that there was a darkness within me
that might not be controllable. 
But - 
I’m older now, and wiser, just as they say.
I’ve neither need nor wish to hide
from any aspect of self (it’s neither acceptance
nor compassion if I pick and choose only the unblemished fruit).
She is a force of destructive potential.
To label one side of the coin dominant and the other submissive,
to me creates a false dichotomy; these are not
opposites nor opposite ends of a spectrum. 
Each is a darkness that seeks pain and power play and pleasure.
The difference lies in her choice of victim. Here
she turns inward seeking a torment of self, whilst there
she turns outward and seeks to persecute another. 
And, like all power, either of these can be for good:
pleasurable, healing, a source of growth, 
or could be corrupting, damaging, like a maladaptive anger. 

ii.
The darkness in you recognises the darkness in me, 
calls out to her, begs her not to be shy. 
You are a fertile soil in which she may blossom. 
The light shines on scarlet bunting, but I
will not turn back. I will weather 
my own storms in your wilderness,
and I will emerge from the rubble
all the stronger for it. I could
have brought you with me, stitched
your wounds with cosmetic skill, but you
are like him though you insist to me you are not,
and this time I will not wait for stragglers.

iii.
The darkness in me is a quiet beauty, 
a mithril armour so light that she was forgotten
until her mettle was tested by your subtle finesse.
He was broad sword, raw weaponised incompetence
compensating for poor technique, unwieldy footwork,
he tarries to parry and leaves himself open, but you
are a master of this choreography and move with a grace
he could never hope to achieve.  You speak
as though you know the theory like the back of your hand.
You critique your own attempt at Bonetti’s Defense,
cancel out my Capo Ferro with Thibaultian geometry,
but all is over-stylised and cannot withstand my study of Agrippa.
Do you mutter “inconceivable” when the night terrors
envelop you in their darkness, though you ache
to be once more in mine?