We hold tight until we fuse together. You are a strange band of colors, a warm smile an expanse of skin welcoming me. A mouth to enter a mind to release to kiss and slide and rub and feel moving and changing and surrounding and holding tighter tighter until the next joining the next push and taste and ride and float. All of you present and accounted for, but I don't know where. We aren't anywhere. We dissolve into solution. Water and charged particles: air, eyes and tongue, heart and navel... (you had a mother) ... feet, a silver cigarette case, bottom and top, a hand under your shirt, a silk scarf, tea, coffee.
You've unwound and unwound and now the wrappings are gone. See? Nothing inside. I'm sorry darling. You've given what you had and I swallowed it whole and looked for more but there wasn't any. I sip you in tiny droplets and they are rich and good but so so meager. I'm parched.
You are so beautiful when you're grave and serious and I want to make you smile but that's not enough. You need warmth and light and I've only got them reflected from you. The light from you tastes like nectar and salt, like giant blue eyes full of tears, like sweet cream.
I don't like to talk about monsters. You will brush them away with a wisecrack and a peck on the cheek, but the black won't come out in the wash. It doesn't care what it stains. Nothing reflects back.
You reach for me, not afraid. But it's not me you want. You see something that isn't here.
No I don't. You're here. You. Beneath the black. In the gaps. Waving your hands and shouting. Whistling from across the street with two fingers in your mouth like a little boy. Poring over the crossword scowling like a cartoon villain because you don't know the answer to 26 across. Putting your feet on the coffee table when you thought I wasn't looking.
You were son and friend and lover and soldier and leader and follower and lost. Trapped. Revel in it or grieve, you were there just the same. You're not going home. There's no home left. I was your home. Have I hurt you? Did I erase your sharp black lines until you couldn't recognize yourself? Are my eyes dark enough to see your reflection? I will tie our hands together, tie us to the bed, sink my teeth into you, eat your eyes find your heart and tear it out for safekeeping. Your poor silenced heart. Your dear beautiful heart. Your blackened heart.
The dark drops away and we're clear and empty like fresh white spirit. Blood doesn't matter. You've done nothing wrong, not here, not to me. Please forgive me, my love. I'm the villain of the piece. I washed the stripes from you and left you there, scrubbed raw, alone.