When he walks away, leaving me there,
I keep an eye on him,
tracking him at the corner of my eye.
He swipes the remote from a side table.
Aclicklater,
heavy metal shakes through the speakers.
The vibrations shake up my spine,
a fistfight inside my ribcage,
scratching its nails across my nerves,
my bones,
the floor,
as my heart's ducking for cover.
He walks to the open closet,
naked with his back to me.
I don’t know what he’ll do next.
The not-knowing makes me shiver.
He’s a collector. A boundary-tester.
A man who likes to see how far
skin can stretch before it splits.
A man who wants to see
what he can get away with.
He’s been holding back.
And I’m scared of what happens
when he doesn’t.
He turns with the spreader bar in hand,
and a breath punches through my chest.
Restraints don’t turn me on.
They lock me down,
trap me in a cage with ghosts of my past:
Hunter, who wanted to keep me forever, and
