Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for August 28, 2019

Let’s put it this way: what you’re seeing there is my sunny side.

On a grey scale of one to ten?

You are assuming I have another side.

You’ve heard of Vantablack? Kinda like that.

(VANTA = vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays)

… my brother- a cyclist- says that the dark side is stronger…

…everytime he gets pissed off and angry he says he petals better…

…I-wise man that I am- told him that anger is not a negative emotion…

…that if you are angry with injustice or pissed off at someone being treated unfairly…

…that anger is a good response…

…and that he was using anger for a good cause…

…my dark side…

…duh, I won’t get into my punk rock period …

…or my occasional pantyhose use…

Do you ever wake in the night and think “Is it really this dark or are my eyes still shut and if my eyes are still shut, is this a dream or am I really awake but just lying here wondering why it’s so dark?”

Well, it’s not so much a side as it is omnidirectional. More of an all-encompassing field, I’d say… with an interesting topology… you know … knotty bits…

You can ask a black hole, but don’t get too close.

Sunshine, daisies and rainbows.

Cursive, foiled again.

Melania…..

Depends on the light source on the other side.

Just don’t ask Mona Lisa why she smiles.

(See that imbalance in the landscaping…?)

I do to her what she did to me. Only slower.

As to fullness, my glass shares an equal coexistence ….

Eddie and the Cruisers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYDAF6NbgKc

I don’t have a darkside, what you see is what you get.

Darkness can sometimes be corrected by opening the aperture.

Blacker than the Queen of the Night lily; blacker than Batman’s cape. Blacker than Blackhawk’s “midnight blue” uniform! I have learned from the best: Poe; Stoker; Lovecraft; even some of the Moderns….

Do not tempt the darkness of my heart, blacker than black. Colder than ice. Without pity or remorse….

Stygian darkness only begins the saga of the Dark Lands of Nightmare. Every phobia and hatred are like poppies in the field of screams in a place where every part of it is out to get you and twist you good and proper. Mental illness, physical illness, debilitation and mutilation are there waiting for you like gifts under a blackthorn tree in a swamp of oleaginous things that squirm. Every stench and excruciating spasm is there just for your to experience. Oh dark money pays for it all and the bill is getting to go through it. Whatever comes out of the Dark Lands is forever changed from when it went in…and the darkness lingers within you waiting to be unleashed.

“Luke … I am your father!”

…If you are the dealer, I’m out of the gameIf you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lameIf thine is the glory then mine must be the shameYou want it darkerWe kill the flameMagnified, sanctified, be thy holy nameVilified, crucified, in the human frameA million candles burning for the help that never cameYou want it darkerHineni, hineniI’m ready, my lord…

… Leonard Cohen…

Fresh cut grass and hot dogs on the grill.

“A troubling conversation. Ahl was no longer sure she could disentangle right from wrong. The threads seemed knotted together. When she pulled on a bright one, she found something dark, while the dark threads often led to something as bright as gold or silver.”

—Eleanor Arnason – The Actors: A Hwarhath Historical Romance

Fantasy & Science Fiction – December 1999

And yet the darkness darkened still. A palpable, oppressive Blackness, stifling, thicker than a London fog….