The Darkness I Endured Poem by Gregory Grinham

O solemn Night,  
you were my first inheritance,  
laid upon my shoulders 
before I knew the weight of living. 
In your cold chambers 
I learned the language of silence,  
the discipline of disappearing,  
the art of surviving what could not be spoken. 

You shaped the boy 
who hid his trembling behind obedience,  
the youth who walked corridors of doubt,  
the man who carried the ache 
as if it were duty. 
Your shadows clung to me 
like a second skin,  
unyielding, familiar,  
a place I mistook for home.