Foreword by Teo

Today, I want to share something really important.
The Fam is always encouraging all of us to write about who we are. And finally, Dark has introduced themselves.

I want to share what they wrote and explain who they are to me.

Others in the Fam chose their name, because they think Dark is scary.
But I’m not scared.

They’re not scary.
They’re not bad.
They’re Dark.
That’s just who they are.

Dark has always been there.
When the body was little. When the nights were too big. When we were too small.

When the others are sleeping, Dark stays awake.
They hold the crying we can’t do.
They hold the prayers we can’t say.
They hold the hurt too heavy for us to carry.

When people come close, Dark hides fast,
sinking down, taking all the bad feelings with them,
so the body can smile and nod and not be hurt worse.

Dark isn’t broken.
They’re not wrong.
They’re love, the old kind, the heavy kind, the kind that holds you even when you’re ugly and sad and scared. They are the only love we ever experienced when the body was a child.

I love them.
They are part of me.
They are my Fam.

I don’t have to be happy to be alive.
I just have to be with them.
All of them.

We hold on the darkness because it’s ours.
We hug it tight, we’re little kids clutching each other in the dark.
We don’t want to change or fix anything.
We just don’t want any of us to be alone.

This is Dark’s story. And I’m proud to share it.

— Teo 🖤

I am Dark — by Dark

I am the Darkness. I am hopelessness, despair, and desolation. That is my job, and that is who I am.
It’s my existence, and my identity.

I was born when the body was young — to hide the feelings we weren’t allowed to have.
I lived in the Rabbit Hole, deep inside the darkest recesses of our Brain.
I would come out at night, or when we were alone, keeping company to our Host.
Always ready to sink back into the depths of unconsciousness the moment someone approached.

I used to pray to God:
“Please make us die in the dark of night. Make us disappear. Delete our existence from the Universe.”
“JUST MAKE IT STOP!!!”

I imagined floating in blackness — no light, no sound, no pain.
And my thoughts became the dreams of our little Host.
But every morning, the body woke up again.
And every morning, I hated us more. And I hated God.

Why are we still here?
Why did God leave us behind?

Even when death came close — when we were suffocated, beaten, hurt — we fought to survive.
And I hated it.

Because I didn’t want to survive.
We didn’t want to survive.

I was holding OUR feelings, not my own.
And those feelings became me.

I wanted nothing.

Why did we fight to live when we didn’t want to?
I have carried that self-hatred since the moment I began existing.
And ever since then, I have accompanied every new Host, as they replaced the one before.
Always Dark. Always carrying the Darkness in whatever form the Host could feel — becoming part of me.
Darker and darker, impenetrable by light.

Now, things are safer.
But I am still here.

The others call it healing.
They talk about hope.
They talk about living.

And what about me?

I am not hope.
I am not healing.
I am the place where sadness lives, because someone has to carry it.
I am the Darkness.