We Are All the Same in the Dark

by Julia Heaberlin

Loving dark men is a seesaw. They never tell you everything.

Their love for God and family is just as manic as their hate.

We are all the same in the dark. My mother said that to me when she kissed me good night. She meant that in the dark, all that’s left is our souls.

In the dark, in the daylight, it doesn’t matter. That kind of thinking makes me and a killer the same.

Why do I feel like my eye is more unspeakable than her depression? If everybody’s holes were as obvious as a missing body part, what would the word disabled even mean? Would we erase disabled from the dictionary? Would the word not even exist, because all of us are both broken and whole?

Dandelions digging in for winter. So they can carpet all the graves. So little girls can make wishes. So they can prove resurrection.