Monster

You're too sound of a sleeper to notice I shake at night.

Thank God.

You're too sound of a sleeper to notice my back is leaping under your light, tender sleep-touch or to notice the course airy noise isn't the squeak of the ceiling fan but my breathing.

To hear me whimper "wake up, wake up, wake up, I don't want to die, don't kill me, don't, please".

To watch as I strain to turn around and stare at you, fast and blissfully asleep, dreaming that I am too, with absolutely not an iota of a hint of a trace of intentions to hurt me. Killing me is the last thing in the muscle instincts of your thin brown fingers pressed gently against the prickling skin stretched over my shoulder blades.

But I think too much.

Or I don't trust enough.

Or it's an unconscious thought-weed with invisible roots twisted so deep in my subconscious that I think it's intuition telling me you can't possibly be ultimately good, maybe because I know I'll leave eventually my mind's producing a way it could be your fault and believing it's true because the last thing you make me want to do is hurt you, or maybe my brain's still shaking from my birth into a world this unsteady and any hopes or beautiful things I could perceive become skewed during contemplation in the worst ways possible.

Because you say you love me every night right before you kiss my jaw and bury your face in my shoulder, holding me still in smooth warm arms.

Strong arms (even with the muscles lax).

Dangerous arms (even when they're tangled in the sheets).

I know the people the fingertips slipped through (like they could me) and I've seen the smile where your eyes slit (the one you could be smiling while my back is turned) and I've tasted the fear in the closer-to-death-than-they-know hearts those smooth warm brown hands have gripped and wrenched and wrenched and wrenched (like they are mine expect my heart's beating twice as fast because I knew it would come- I love you- I'm too young- I knew you- You loved me- I trusted you- You were holding me just seconds before you-)

And I scream.

Wide awake, I've been awake the whole time. It wasn't a dream, it isn't, isn't, isn't, isn't, is… not…

You prop yourself up on your elbow and turn me over fast but gently, simultaneously sitting up, now hunched over. And your eyes aren't slits, they aren't tired, they're worried as you lift my head into your lap and pull blankets up close around me.

And slide your fingers up and across my cheeks under my eyes (I was crying).

And then down my neck to my chest (I was panting).

And press your lips to my nose.

My forehead.

You look over at the blinds with gray black light between them that casts blurry stripes across your face. I look at your fingers and feel sick (in the head because there's no blood). And if you knew why I screamed, you should hate me.

But I'll never tell.

You know (because you do love me).

"They used to sleep under the bed…"

And I wish I could have nightmares.