This is one of the first poems I ever wrote. Its painfully obvious I had just turned 12. I was heavily into horror fiction (Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz, etc) and had an extensive knife collection. Also, in hindsight, very tolerant parents. I suspect that I would not have lasted long in the zero-tolerance schools of today.

The pit is deep. Deep and black as pitch. Is it full of water or is it an infinite hole? I look down but fear forces me to back away like a moving wall. I hear a sound. Is it from the pit, or is it from my mind? It must be from the pit because my mind is screaming already.

Why I stay beside the pit, I do not know. Maybe it is because I am afraid to venture into the deep blackness that surrounds me. Maybe its because I feel eyes piercing into me like a knife from deep into the black. I sit there alone, wondering. About what, you ask? I do not know.

My mind seems to be somewhere else. Wait. Did the darkness move in, or was it another trick to move my mind farther away?

A thought fills the portion of my mind still left.

I do not know why I must say it.

The eye is deep. Deep and black. Trapped in the deep black eye.