We Trained in the Dark
Where survival was an unspoken language and ascension began in the shadows.
There was that dream again;
the one coursing through my skin,
the dark planet of cliffs and crevices
where we leapt, trained, fought
in black so absolute
the eyes became useless
and scent turned into ley lines.
We learned aloneness as a language,
memorized the breath of predators,
ran the same terrain for years;
same space, same fear, same godless gravity.
Bodies morphing: solid, liquid,
shifting forms like it was nothing,
choosing whatever shape
made survival attainable in the moment.
Have you ever smelled
the absence of light?
It stinks of coal and sulphur,
of emaculite burning from the inside out;
that morbid, barren place
where no one eats,
no one rests,
and the only thing that feeds you
is loneliness.
Then came bath night
just a few years back;
candlelight flickering; old ancestors,
water warm, breath quieting
into a meditative rhythm.
She and I;
daughter and mother,
soul and shadow,
the one and the we;
went flying again.
I followed the spinning hole,
the one you run from
until you finally don’t.
In we went:
sky-water, water-sky,
dimensions slicing open
into flat colors below our float.
I spun back,
looked down,
shot forward;
and there it was.
The maze.
Walls high, miles wide.
She whispered,
“There… the dark place
where you faced
the beasts; where you slayed them.”
I was confused;
then I remembered.
We laughed.
I had thought it was a planet.
See, we planned this.
Earth was no accident.
Science can call us human
if it wants to.
We smile politely
at their tiny constructs.
But we’ve always been more;
molecules and stardust,
formed and unformed,
slipping through their labels
like smoke.
She; Seven,
told me human heaven
is so poorly described
it’s almost comical.
It doesn’t compare
to the brilliance there;
where color is something you feel
and spirit is held
like a sacred stone
that isn’t unbreakable at all.
I inhaled blue,
exhaled purple,
sent healing through the room.
Told her,
“You are free.”
And the tears came
beautiful, expressive, electric.
This mission isn’t complete.
I was meant to understand
delusion, illusion, confusion,
all just layers of the same veil.
Walk through them.
Step over fear
the way warriors avoid spears.
It is finished when you decide it ends.
Back into liquid I went,
body lifting,
mind soaking in the lesson:
what I see;
me…
we…
are molecular hearts
torn apart
and stitched back again.
It’s only a fraction of what happens
when we mend,
become wind,
ascend,
drop the performance,
face the masses
with zero care
for judgment’s tiny grip.
If this doesn’t feel familiar,
it isn’t meant for you.
My truth asks nothing,
accept it or don’t,
I move like weather,
unpredictable and ancient.
We ride the horses,
become their manes,
walk the memories
over and over again,
each time deeper,
where the layers thicken
into libraries.
One free mind at a time
is still a revolution.
The goal is wholeness;
beyond realms,
beyond rules.
I am the helm.
I am gaseous flame.
I light worlds.
And to most,
I am just that girl.
But to the few
who truly see me;
I am the ocean.
Back inside we go,
lungs filling,
souls steady,
preparing
to dive again.
And if you only knew
how fast you become whole
the moment you let fear slip
out of your lungs;
exhaled, transmuted,
turned into presence,
your entire energy
would rise,
shifting clean
into an unstoppable
persistence.
©️Vennie Kocsis
