Chiaroscuro

n. 1. a method of painting in which the figures of main interest are strongly lighted and the rest painted in deep shadow, the pattern of light an dark predominating over that of color

2. a sketch in black and white

I am the son of a Death Eater. Why else would I need him, with is voice like crisp mountain air that in excess (always in excess) dulls my mind?

I try so hard to make him happier. He comes back to me often, so I think I am succeeding in illuminating him but I still see the darkness, like the sensation of warm velvet being ripped away, or maybe of having your skin boiled in a cauldron of steaming bubotuber pus.

I see him laughing with his friends, they stick like toffee and nuts in a pie but he is the lone pecan chased around the plate by a hungry mouth. Then he falls between the fork and the table to hide for a while. He comes to me to cover himself in a velvet blanket of sex and drugs but sometimes I can't help thinking I am the one carelessly tossing the blanket off and saying, "I've caught you and now I will eat you!" like the children's game.

I try so hard to make him better, even if the only way is to shelter him from adoration, but he always goes away dying. He's like blood stains in hot water, you mean well but you've only fucked up.

His despair tastes like dark chocolate, and how can it be so good Am I wrong to desire his suffering? Maybe I'm right and the pain of boiling flesh and torn souls is what he wants, maybe he needs it to forget (though what it is that haunts him I can't discern.) He could never be a Dark Lord, he is too selfish. He takes into himself the pain he owes to others. To me most of all. My savior.

And he never talks, except to tell me that none of this is real because I am dead. If that's what it takes to give him the pain he needs, that denial of a dark place to hide himself (because I am dark); if he needs a garish light to blind him and burn him, then I will shine as brightly as I can though it is hard from the shadows.

As for my needs, I'll keep playing dead to feel alive.