Colloquy.

A train of thought hit me

by inch of skin

at three past eight.

Rapid falling night,

robotic and cold,

I clutched the sheet,

anxious

to rest my broken feet.
‘Can’t you keep me sacred?’,

he tossed.

I lay there

numb,

(like he told me)

docile and discrete.
‘I try.

But certain unsure days, 

there ain’t abscondence

from incubus feeding

on my flesh.’ 
Magician of verse,

he let out a roar,
‘Where is your former self?’ 
His fingernails

angled between my legs,

usually crimson,

tonight blue.
‘Safe in grave’, 

phrases I didn’t choose,

poured out from my throat.

‘I’m worn out, 

untamable, 

bloodstained mess 

and 

I know not how

to defy the same ordeal, 

different days’.
He forced open my chest,

conjured an albatross

at an instant.
‘Love that has known defeat

is a breathing masterpiece,

sheltering inconspicuous wings

to rise beyond

the sombre smoke rings. 

Haven’t you rummaged through?’
I had lost my glasses

somewhere amidst

intoxicated atrocities.
‘Blurred, 

dwindled to a trickle, 

three spades 

and a lost queen.’

I winced.
A murmuration

of starlings swooping,

owls screeching in protest,

my chain of thought

bawled,
‘Take a moment,

move the stones

that block your way.

Your delay, 

their easy slay.

Wait for the shifting tides, 

dance around 

the winsome meadows

that lure your soul.

Shatter the chain and bar, 

loud.’
The iridescent candle sparked,

I deduced

my virtual self

on the opposite wall.

Remembrance of his last strokes

of purple-green

on my chin

paved my footsteps

to paradise,

so ravishing.
‘I can climb out, I believe’, 

the euphoric alien in me

heaved

in rapture.