The Dark Pen
Why the name The Dark Pen?
Besides the mere fact that I am a dark-skinned person who does what a pen does (writing), I chose the name because such stories are confined within the walls of our souls that hail from darkness, hence the name The Dark Pen.
Why do I write?
I write to tell stories. I write because words feel make me feel like I am part of everything outside, inside, and around me. It is through words that I can speak for and to souls. I can tell stories of someone’s son or daughter in these streets through both fictional and nonfiction stories. I endeavor to tell stories that someone’s son or daughter would prefer to confide in the soul, yearning to spit it out someday. I have stories I never want to talk about with anyone, but through my blog, I can tell such stories.
BRED IN HELL
My brother and I were brought up by a single parent, our father. After our mother was called to dance with the angels. When the lumps on my chest started showing their eyes to the world, at the age of 9. I longed for paradise, but it proved; otherwise, it was all but a realm of fantasies. I was brought up wearing a cover, a facade from then on. All that transpired behind my father’s curtains were hell on earth. Behind closed doors, my father would make me swear to never tell it, anyone. Whatever happened in his bed, “must stay right here, in this bed, or else…” This was after he had sent my brother away. He endeavored to get rid of my innocence, purity, and dignity. He took all that away from me. He forced himself inside me in the name of,
“You’re now a woman.”
Wait, did she who bore me go through it too?
He overdosed me with dirt by exploring my being, inside out. Moments later, I would (and still) smell semen and sweat with no source of either. The scent would be (and still is) as strong as it always was whenever he mounted on me. I couldn’t speak of his acts to anyone, not even with my own brother. I thought I was protecting him because I got fed up with swallowing my father’s threats. His threats paralyzed me into fear of what he’d do to me or my brother. Such memories never leave, they stay to kill me inside. They incarcerate me in a dark dungeon, within four walls of depression, anger, brokenness, and sadness, with no speck of light. There are no bright places whenever such souvenirs bang on the door of my brain. They jangle my nerves and split my eardrums into two.
Sometimes, I strive to focus on staying awake because I go blank. I am dipped into an ocean of dark moods, then all my thoughts are all gone at once. I’m still stuck at “I’m fine” responses, which my brother gets whenever he becomes so inquisitive. Several years after my father left us for the heavens (ironical, right?), I till feel my tears running from her eyes every morning, I wake not knowing why. I sit for a minute and play the echoes over and over again. I ask myself so many times if it was rape, and if it really had to happen. My social life doesn’t exist, I can never let any other man near me. My room walls are my best friends. They are covered in childhood memories, which I use to help calm me in the night. When I say calm, I mean after nightmares. My father’s actions have always made me see darkness around lights instead of the other way around. They say there is a rope ladder out of depression, one you can use to climb out of it, the problem is that I just can’t find the will to reach out for the first rung, let alone try. Depression has become the unseen, unheard, silent killer. It’s a pain that’s too much to cope with and too hard to deal with. I can’t escape it no matter how hard I try, because it follows me around like a black shadow that’s on the inside, eating every tissue inside me.
You can find more of The Dark Pen’s work on Instagram here, or on Twitter here.