Fear.

I didn’t know the monster in my closet had a name.

It’s a lie… The monster doesn’t live in my closet, but just above my head… behind my back, and deep inside my chest. Some days it wraps itself around my ribs like a python, and others it fills my head. On those days I can’t tell where I end and it begins, my eyes turn black and my tongue splits, and I welcome the monster home.

On good days, it follows closely behind me, so close that I can feel it breathing down my neck, its arm digging through my ribcage, squeezing my heartbeat into drums.

I don’t have the words

They were mine long ago, I kept them all in a wooden trunk under my bed, to take out and stack like building blocks, to mold like clay into the shape of my demons, to throw across the room and turn my bare walls into rainbows.

And once I put them back in their trunk and locked it, and the key fell from my hands. I’ve searched the lands and the sky but there is no key, and there are no words anymore…

Dear God, I wish I could ask that You let me have this moment forever.. an enternity gratefully spent watching my love sleep peacefully under your loving light.

But instead, I pray that You take him where he must go, that You go with him and keep his hand in Yours always.. hold him when he stumbles and don’t let him fall..

Lord, I can’t hold him in my arms forever, I can’t keep him safe.. He’s not mine to give, but I give him to You regardless, to hold in Your loving arms, to watch over him day and night, to guide his every step and keep him from hurting himself.

And if it be your will, please bring him back to me.. so that the endless love You placed in my every fiber can be home again.

Please take care of my Dorian..

I’m sorry I never call..

You built swings, and crosses for dead bees..

You made paths through the meadows, found the way to the beach..

You sang, and told stories; knew the funniest jokes..

You made ponytails and wiped away tears.. kissed bruises better and warmed frozen feet..

And how you’d swing the scythe through the grasslands, and shadow the field like a god…

Then you died, again.

I buried you a thousand times.

I dug the graves with my fingers.

Remember when grandma used to say, that at the end there’s only sorrow to share,

when the gates are locked and the paint stripping off the walls…

But you joke; you tell those silly stories

and I can almost see you sitting on the steps..

Mute tears wiped swiftly with a trembling hand.

And you laugh, hopelessly clinging to the pretense,

desperate eyes searching for her;

the little girl in her silly dresses

the red bows you tied in her hair.

I see you walking to the old well

your eyes lost now, your heart numb

If only the fields could engulf you..

If only that bottle wasn’t quite so far..

You’re my home, dad..

I’m sorry I never call…

Your arms are made of sunlight, they leave gold dust on my skin when you hold me. The star inside your chest burns brighter when you pull me close and I melt like a candle; my whole body rebuilt in the shape of you.

And now I’m just ashes and dust, shapeless.. my skin has become obsolete and there’s only one place I can be whole. There’s only one pair of hands that remember my shape, that can mould me again..

The blue disk hangs on the doorknob, inconspicuous.

It hangs crookedly, not quite perfect; like the people behind the door.

A hand reached out;

and all their hands are reaching out.

Each one an angel hand

waiting to rest on your shoulder,

and give you life.

There’s a chair inside with your name on the back,

you won’t see it, but trust me, it’s there

And all they ask is that you sit

and that you keep coming back.

Her.

I won’t leave her.

Isn’t that what they all say? No, they never do. But you know it anyway. You know it because it’s you that he leaves, again and again…

But he did say it. With his head on your chest and your hair wrapped around his fingers… with the taste of your love on his lips he chose her; but you already knew he would always choose her.

So you sit back in your place; and oh, you do know your place now. You cherish the small part of his heart that is yours, but can’t help wonder.. if she gave just a little more, wouldn’t he take it back? Wouldn’t he give it all to her?

Ash

The old loneliness I treasured, its icy teeth long settled in my flesh were at home.

But this?

Dripping with longing and desire, and traces of trembling fingers on hot skin; with question marks and what ifs..

This is fire and molten rock, it burns through my bones and leaves smoking holes every time you place a soft kiss on the back of my neck, every time you rest your hand on the side of my face.

Yet it’s that same kiss that I await to fill the hollowness, that same hand to piece me back together.

But my love, what if there’s nothing left then? If the blaze leaves only ash in its wake and your final kiss blows me to the wind.

Have you wondered?

I search your eyes for the pain; not the one from the past but the one that soon comes from beneath that loving gaze. For the blow I now know to expect when I tear down these walls..

But you tear them down with your eyes alone, unwrap my mummified heart and hold it in your hands like the holy grail; this bleeding, shivering corpse..

You undress me with a gentle look, layers and layers of black cloth fall to the ground in a smoking pile and the soft smile at the corner of your lips turns them to ash..

I want to hide my nakedness from you, not the skin but the rotting wounds that will never heal, the pain that clings to my bones like a hideous tumour. But your fingers brush against the side of my face and disarm me, blow the last of my shield to the winds…