am I him?

There is a dark man,

In the corner,

Of my room.

Does he watch over me?

Does he want to rip my eyes out, cut my wrists, gauge my throat and steal my voice to use it

for his own purposes?

I am not safe.

Within the confines of these four walls which I can never bring myself to get out of,

he lies in the stark shadows,

shape-shifting shrewdly, hushed and shameful,

but never showing remorse for what is to come.

When the moon has collected itself and shares a bit of its luminescence,

I catch a glimpse of him. In all his disgusting glory, he towers.

No eyes to emanate his glare of hatred with,

he is a blind man, lost and scared,

yet ever so ready to pounce upon me.

I am his prey.

There are nights when I awaken, and he stares down at me.

I feel my perspiration penetrate the barriers of his pus and blood that drip onto me,

seeping through my skin and peeling off my clothes.

This potion replaces my tears, and for that night,

we become one in the same.

“An ignorable voice that screams for help,” he said I have.

My fingers twitch in a last scramble to save myself from the claws that pierce through my lungs.

And just as I think ‘This is it.’ He loosens his grasp around my neck,

drawing his hand back.

Tonight, I become a corpse once more,

grieving for the light that this monster steals from me.

He has not killed me yet. I wonder why

he lets go every time.

If he could hold on a second longer, I would be dead,

away from the misery he puts me through nightly.

Once more, the moonlight hits him,

and for a brief second I see his newest masterpiece.

His talons covered in the carcass of my forlorn past, sanguine paint slipping down his arm. How magnificent!

To see such a sight before my eyes,

gruesome yet alluring,

horrifying yet enticing.

I am almost glad he has chosen me, a fragile mortal, as his canvas,

turning a shattered pot into a flower vase.

Not my friend, not my foe. He is just, simply,

The dark man,

In the corner,

Of my room.