Fear As a Bedfellow - Take II

I watch you every night
let Fear tuck you in
spreading itself
whisper-thin.
A blanket to cover
your goosebumped skin.
Your hair is gripped
in its grimy fist.
It sickens me that
this foul thing,
reeking of death,
should be your lover.

What a lullaby
it sings to you,
injecting brutal
nightmares into
your sickly sleep.
It washes your back
in the shower,
the better to keep
coating you with
paranoia, poured
in your ears and flung
as droplets rolling smoothly
off its grey, waxy tongue.

You gave it a
farewell kiss today.
Was its mouth cold? fever-hot?
where are its lips?
It inspires in me
such disgust, the way
those possessive hands
linger on your hips.
My eyes had never
been anything but blue
before that cursèd
sight hit home.

Each morning, you bend
to lovingly tie one end
of its odd body
to your naked waist.
A self-sustaining
umbilical cord, taking
its thick, fleshy substance
from your soul, chopped up
and rubber-cured
in a tangy broth,
diluted with a cup
of your night sweat.

You have taken to
wearing Fear as a cloak:
your shield and
tarnished armor all in one.
Its supple fingers
are poised to choke:
clasped tightly
around the pulse-point
of your throat.
As if barely resisting
the sharpest urge to
cut off your gasps.

I see you shiver;
has it slipped
its eager palms
under your clothes, caressing
the insides of your thighs?
Is it whispering its
anxious mantra of psalms
into the soft curls
at the nape of your neck?
You wince at every
twisted beck and call
yet through it all
you refuse to part ways.

You are obsessed.
You let Fear sit on your chest,
control your skittish heartbeat.
You wash its deceptively
small, graceful feet
and let it wriggle
into your warm embrace.
Can you not feel its
wicked spine cut your skin?
Its fetid breath
blows on your face
and I hold the bile in.

Today, I grasped
both of your scarred wrists,
dragged you from your
would-be death bed
on stubborn heels
to breathe on the mirror.
I held you by the chin,
forcing you to see.
You turned to me
with Terror wrapped
around your bones, Fear
grinning from behind your eyes.

I am too late. You are Fear's vessel.

Your body is cold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can lead a poem to rhythym but you can't force it to rhyme. <-- More Poems