In the Dark

In the dark I can't see
How pale I am now
How the lines on my eyes
Carry down
Carry down
To my lips

So now when I talk
I'm talking more
About what I see

But I can't see at all
In the dark

In the dark I can't see
The roughness of my palms
The fortunate lines
Run off into dead ends
Saying I'll be gone
A lot sooner than I think

I'm pleasant
I'm polite
But in the dark
My nasty thoughts
Overtake my fake smiles
And I get whipped
By the silence
Where my thoughts
Can stretch out
And come back
To attack me

Yet in the dark
I'm acceptable
To myself

I can reach out far
And not touch a thing

I can run my hands over my body
And pretend that it's not my body
That it's the body
Of an unacceptable person
Lying next to me

I believe that
In the dark

And you--

You're like my night light

You give just enough of yourself
To shine on the parts of me
I can bear to see

And you glow
And I feel safe
And more than that
I can sleep

I can believe that there in the dark
Are two people, not three

Not one person revolting
And another one self-loathing
And you, perfect

But just you
And me

I can believe
I can believe