BEFORE
STORM
The nightmare is always the same.
There’s a girl, and the dark, and I am never sure which one is which. When I wake, I think they’re entwined. Maybe the pitch black is the metaphor forher.But the feel of blood, sticky and strangely cold, it never leaves my skin. I take a shower each time I awake from hell, drenched in sweat, and I turn the water hot as I can stand it, my skin red and my eyes closed as I burn.
She never quite leaves me.
Predatory, that’s how she feels.
But I love her.
But that’s what they always make you think, isn’t it?
The succubus clawing nails down your back. She is meant to paint bliss.
A demon in my dreams, and when I reach out to her from the depths of the dark, she is frigid. Cold and solemn and quiet.
Is she bleeding, or am I?
I never know.
I try to follow, keep my mind in sleep. I’ve read about it, transcending dreams, so you become the dreamer instead of merely the dreamed.
But she steps further, into the shadows, and I can’t touch her.
It feels like a game we’ve played our whole lives.
Predator and prey.
Hunter and hunted.
I do not know which is which.
When the haze leaves my head, everything settles with clarity.
I was born with one line, and it is one I’m meant to dance around for eternity.
She cannot die or I forfeit my life.Is this true, or did I invent it inside my head?
It’s unsettling, forced to stay away when you want to draw close.
But she means nothing to me either way.
Rivalry is passed down in spirit.
The bitterness was always mine to inherit.
BEFORE
LYDIA
It’s all cold now. Liquid and congealed, both in turns.
All over me and rolling along the floor as if this house was slanted since it was built.
I rest my head on Mommy’s chest.
