Wallwork: Darkness
darkness comes too soon
the moon fades away
ocean waves
lights misbehaving
dancing in the moonless night
tides sweep me away
i don’t know this place
i never know my place
married to the wild and affaired to truth
takes all my time
i never know what to do
so many days spent alone
nothing to do
no place feels like home
found solace in the songs
from the man in the moon
so much pain
so much truth
but darkness caught up to me
he just hid his face
left me alone
all alone in that place
so I ran away
i didn’t know that place
I never know my place
beauty in tragedy
it’s my peoples’ song
creation in chaos
we don’t care what’s wrong
because hurt, love, pain
it’s all we’ve seen
so we have faith
and survive in fantasy
our day may come in reality
but we won’t notice
’cause we’re livin’ the dream
we’re so lost in our dreams
climbed the highest mountain
and jumped into the void
but there was still too much noise
the darkness makes so much noise
i was destroyed and the angels said
“you must find a way, and here take this pain”
so i ran away
i didn’t know that place
i never know my place
sometimes i’ll check in with reality
don’t worry i’m still wandering
traded peace for all that tragedy
don’t have much use for-
talking
i met a tree once
he was dying
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said he reached for the stars
was getting killed for trying
now he just waits quietly to die
had to give up
after growing so high
i laid down on his roots to try
to give him my strength
so he’d want to survive
promised i’d stay always by his side
but he said no child
you are far too wild
find another way to be free from our pain
so i ran away
i didn’t know that place
i never know my place
stood out on the shore
let the tides come in
waves from the deep
washed over me
the ocean she told me all she’d seen
fish with wings
what life on land did bring
she wondered how life came with so much strength
she said she watched the first whale walk out with legs
and I walk back here just to ask my place?
she said:
child don’t you care about the poisoning?
that your earth, water, sky
it’s all hurting?
it’s seeped through your entire species
stop thinking, start doing
I know it’s a wreck
but be your best
and clean up this mess
there is a whole wide universe of empty space
and we’ve got to share this one tiny place.
this is your place,
you better know your place
I better know my place,
because this is my place
The Story Behind Darkness
Some people write love songs. Others write about rebellion, heartbreak, or the human condition. Darkness is what happens when you try to write a “happy” song and accidentally end up documenting your own survival instead.
Written at the Sea Gypsy off the Oregon Coast (in the ocean- look it up), Darkness was born at the tail end of a road trip that had no clear destination — only the quiet understanding that if death came, it would be fine. The journey up the California coast was a slow surrender, a kind of offering to the land and sea, as if nature itself might decide what to do with me. But something happened when I reached Oregon. The sky met the ground, the tides crashed in, and I realized I was too stubborn to let go. Healing wasn’t a revelation; it was a dare.
Wallwork Paintings:
So I wrote the happiest thing I could think of. Or at least, I tried.
What came out instead was Darkness, a song about the strange relationship between pain and beauty, between creation and destruction. It’s about the way people who have only known struggle keep moving forward, not because they believe in hope, but because survival is just what they do. It’s about the noise inside the void, the wisdom of dying trees, and the way the ocean doesn’t ask permission to reclaim what’s been broken. It’s about knowing that even if the world is burning, you still have a place in it.
Some have pointed out that Darkness isn’t exactly uplifting. But for me, it was the closest thing to joy I had been able to express in nearly a decade. It was the first time I could take something raw and unfiltered — without the trauma, without the weight of what I had survived — and shape it into something that didn’t consume me.
This song is a container. It holds what I don’t have to carry every day. When the feelings come, I let Darkness handle them so I don’t have to. It’s part of the wallwork that makes healing possible.
Maybe it’s not happy. It certainly has an air of embarrassment. There were so many big mature feelings to deal with, but regressing back to the childhood wonder of nature, was the only honest way my mind could stay strong enough to get out. And that was enough.
