A Spark of Candlelight

There is a terrible gnawing in the pit of my stomach; an uncomfortable tightness, a dead weight pressing upon my mind and heart. It’s not that hollow pain I know so well, and it’s not that sharp pang in my chest. Just a gnawing, a slowly pressing heaviness. As if I was walking through those dark woods again; those dark woods where many a beast has stalked me before; where the memories assail me and hunt me down- longing to taste my flesh and spill my blood. The dry twigs crunch underneath my feet, and an owl hoots in the pine towering far above my head. The moon is full, casting eerie shadows in an already darkened world. I hear my own raspy breathing; I feel my own heart pounding; my own throat constricting and squeezing the life from my lungs. It is I; I am my own worst enemy. These pathways of my mind and heart are dark and void of even candlelight. All I can do is grope about, feeling for the walls, only feeling the slime and hearing the drip-drip-drip of the gaping cavern. I hear the squeaking of the mice as they scurry to escape my feet. I cannot tell if my eyes are open or not; I touch my eyes and feel my eyelashes blinking, but my mind cannot decipher between the darkness crowding in, or the darkness already pervading my heart.
I have no need of a candle, though, to find a spark of light. For this precious coal is treasured deep within my heart; when the darkness seems to deep to face, and another day too hard to bear, He’a still there; He’s always there.