there are illusive monsters in
the gloom, nails and teeth,
lurking, menacing, tracing
the curve of my hip,

the soles of my feet,
shh, don’t tell,
figments that fade in the light,
morning, gasp awake shaking, cursing
the vampire that sucks away
my viscous, slippery
nightm   memories?   nightmares
 
no one gives credence to horrors
in the bed
 
ghastly thing I am
 
today, I dreamed instead,
and the vampire let me hoard
the substance, a voice, mine,
pleading,
nails and teeth retreating,
the advent of noon-day light’s
kind eyes
 
a certain memory
 
at night
and so the shapeshifter has a full face,
half cruel, half gleaming
 
but things don’t have voices like that
ghastly thing I am
 
for if compelled, how can I cry wolf?
gravity is no one-sided force
she still pulls I draw her in
and I ached the bed
was dim I didn’t
see didn’t I
let her?

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