Sometimes when I am with you I forget…

I forget that there was anything before the warmth, security and comfort found in the crook of your neck. No sound has ever existed but the hypnotic rhythm of your heart and soft whisper of your breath against my ear. There has been no touch but your gentle stroking of soothing absent patterns across my back. I have known no hair but the soft gold tresses tickling my cheek, no other eyes but the chocolate brown half hidden under heavy lids. I have inhaled no scent but the unique mixture of citrus and science and warm skin that fills my lungs, infusing with my very soul. Sometimes, for what seem eternal, contented moments, nothing exists outside of our cocoon of skin and sheets and love.

But this is not a fairy tale and love cannot erase the past. Sometimes I forget but sometimes… Sometimes your arms wrap too tight around me, your breath is too hot on my face. Your heartbeat is deafening and your scent overwhelming. All too soon a cacophony of voices clamor to be heard.

"You're not good enough for her…"

"Why would she want someone like you?"

"You'll break her heart…"

Your arms are not yours, they are his, trapping me in place. Your breath is hers, harsh and rasping. I am frozen, sweating and silent, my lungs refusing to fill, every fiber of my being straining with a will to beat the rising panic. I know this is not real. But it feels real, looks and sounds and smells real. And so in that moment it is real for me again. His weight presses down, her taunting words ring clear and true. Lifeless unseeing eyes. Gruesomely serene grins. And laughter; haunting, trilling laughter. Everything that the world has ever thrown at me, everything I have ever done, every feed, every kill, every lover that was not you. All that I did when the darkness and hunger took hold. Every reason I can give for you not to love me twists and swirls and compounds into one awful roar in my ears.

Sometimes I forget who I was, like discarded black and white photographs of another life torn and scattered to the wind. But sometimes all that came before plays out, time and time again, in glorious Technicolored high definition 3D and surround sound.

You are calling to me. Your voice is all at once soft and loud, a whisper and a roar, obscured by yet cutting through those other screaming, howling things in my mind. At first it is a coaxing hum at the edge of my consciousness that soon grows and rises like an approaching battle cry for my soul. I grope in the darkness of my mind trying to remember why it is so important to find this thing I need to hold on to, this thing I cannot grasp yet, like a wisp of smoke. I fight to remember why I must obey the gentle command your voice wields.

We have done this before, you know the dance, you have learnt the steps well. The exact tone of voice is paramount. The pressure in the first touch must be precise, not so much as to be alarming, just enough to be comforting. You know the words that are safe to utter and how painstakingly slow to move. These are lessons learnt over countless encounters with my past. These are lessons I am loath to teach.

When we are alone again, when there is only me and you and the visions have died down back into memories. When it is just us on the floor of our darkened bedroom, you pull me into your arms, whisper nonsense into my hair. It breaks my heart, tears at my very being, to have inflicted this upon you; again.

I tell you to go; you only wipe tenderly at my tears. I push you away; you only pull me closer, push your face into my hair. I repeat a thousand times into your shoulder how sorry I am, and a thousand times your answer is silent forgiveness given form with chaste kisses to my hair, my temple, my cheek.

I will never understand why you will not listen to me in those moments, when I am at my worst and you are at your best. It is unfathomable to me why you stay, but the selfish part of me is glad that you do.