That dark resistance

When things begin to fall apart,
some dark split appears,
a broken place, a crack,
and something darker still peers out,
wary, weapons in hand,
prepared to defend
what was and is no more to be,
fending off invaders
and suggestions that perhaps
its time had come.
Armed to the teeth,
it will not listen to reason
but stands, stiff and terrified,
guarding against imagined fears;
not seeing Now, or Possibility,
its eyes blank screens
on which past nightmares keep projecting.