DIVINATIONS 
MAGAZINE

I am the cryptid condensed
upon your clavicle and chest.

Lonesome, irksome
dark huddling thing.

I creep unearthly sound: scurrying
footsteps around the edge of your bed,
whispering weight against your walls,
ogling your limbs lying tethered, atrophied. This,
our precious bondage time. Supine, divine.

I often think about the ease with which I crush
your lungs and make them wheeze. Scuttle your heart
into percussive panic. Sew your lips shut – ah!
So succulent is our silence.

I am your dark thing peering
with nothing eyes
from the other side
of your duvet.

Shadow, spectre, silhouette, stranger.

Oh, how accustomed I have grown
to the splinters of your bed frame.

Alas, to be so unwanted here,
to be so unwanted elsewhere –

Contortionist, cauchemar, corrupter, creature.

When day breaks, I’m gone away to lick
my fingers and await
our next nocturnal rendezvous.

When day breaks, you’ll think of me, an
obsessive concession and dread
my return through the hours
until finally, darkness falls –

And here I come again
                 and again
                        and again
                               and again
                        to be too close for comfort
       until the night you succumb.