HOBI - writing some of the strange things in my mind (that probably shouldn't be there on Christmas night)

I try to stay away from the darker places of my mind. I tend to be a positive person and I try to bring that out, not only in myself, but in others as well.

But, there is a boy - a boy that I've know about since the age of nine.... twenty years. 

I have had countless dreams about this boy, two of them involve staircases. 

It has come to my attention that he has had "staircase" dreams as well, and it makes me feel strange. 

His staircase seems to come from a much weaker place than mine, with some unidentifiable female(s) - a steampunk fantasy in "Wizard of Oz" black and white.

His dream whispers a song to him - a whispered song that tries to sing through cadavers swinging from some fixed place in the air, a once-human chandelier. 

There is a bright light in his dream. 

He is going toward it. 

There is a bright light in both of my dreams. 

What is the difference?
In one dream, my staircase is well lit in a place that I am very familiar with.
I am going down the stairs and he passes me - ascending without a glance.
In the second dream, I am the one ascending as he trudges downward, again not once looking my direction. I have a power in the second dream that I don't in the first, but he doesn't know that. 

Now, my dreams may seem tame by comparison to a chandelier of death- but I must be honest, my dreams are usually much more disturbing.

I've been deep under the sea, chased there by enormous spiders that are trying to eat me.
I've watched myself be stabbed to death by a shadow that I could not see.
I've felt the pain of being stabbed as I watched it happen.
I've never run away.

This makes me wonder things.

I wonder how dark my mind really is. 

How deep a mind can introspect before it goes crazy?

I do not know. 

I've never let myself slip that far. 

Is this boy braver than I am for traveling into that dark nightmare that I do not talk about? 

Or am I more brave for having darker thoughts (that are often much more nightmarish) and maintaining my composure? 

Am I more dangerous? 

How are our dreams so similar? 

How can they be so different?

These must be universal themes. 

That is the only justification. 

• Stairs
• Lights
• Songs 
• Knives
• Monsters in the dark
• Monsters in the light
• Attraction
• Familiarity
• Foreign-ness
• Curiosity
• Bravery
• Vulnerability
• Agonizing moments of infinity that exhale forever before the final toll of some soundless bell

Does he really hear that?
Does he feel it? 

Does he see it?

Does he smell it?

Does he taste it? 

What is it?

Neither of us seem to know, yet we seem to dream similar dreams.

Do we somehow know, in some cosmic way, that we suddenly have one another's attention? 

Is that what it is? 

Perhaps we are old friends, much older than we think. 

We do have ancestry in the same part of the world. 

How do I know this?

Well, our last names are a start. 

Though I am aware of him, I do not believe he knows me.

I'd almost rather he didn't.
I feel as though we are consciously existing in my second dream right now.

Nostalgia keeps this boy in my heart... nostalgia and sentimentality.

But, I do not love him. 

His darkness is not dark enough. 

I do not love him in his darkness because he refuses to pull away from it to see the light. 

He seems without hope.

Drowning in a shallow puddle of mud, refusing to save himself. 

I almost hate him for this. 

I do not think he can go as far into the darkness as I can. 

I feel I bring a greater light with me... a stronger light.

Or perhaps it is that he has already gone into that darkness before me and it has nearly extinguished him - leaving him forever altered, with a weak flame.

Is my light strong enough to melt him?

Yes.
He does not know this, but in my soul I am certain of it.

Do I have mercy enough to melt his candle to my own?

No.

Not if he weakens my light. 

He crawls brown - like sticky tar... bemoaning his existence as he reaches out like a leech for the next stair step up. 

The truth is - I fear my darkness. 

The truth is - I fear his more.

Though my darkness is darker, his has the ability to infect.

He is an incubus of pity - and my sentimental attachment endangers me. 

I must let him go. 

I need to let him go. 

Send him skulking away to some other victim. 

The victim I am too cruel to be.

My darkness may be darker and much more bloodstained, but it is clear and precision - like a freshly sharpened knife blade reflected in the full moon's light on a crisp, starless night.
He is otherwise - a cesspool of dense, corrupted fog.