if there were no light then this would be easier, you whispered, and the lights were low and Donnie Darko played on your tiny t.v. set while you hugged me close and I felt at home with candles lit by the bedside and you were every where with me. and then you were gone. and I was standing in the bathroom pulling my hair out strand by strand but your fingers were nowhere.

at night, I wake up and there is a scream caught in my throat; there are children huddled around the bed, peering down at me; there are men and women that stand like cattle around my bed, their eyes a deep white, chewing at their arms and fingers. the boy sits at a table at night, smiling over and over again, laughing manically at the approaching cars on the side of the road. he stumbles towards me, still smiling, and my fingers wither into dried flesh on my lips.

lamps without bulbs sat around me in a circle, and i could feel the sound of fighting and locked doors everywhere. the light from the window painted the shower golden and droplets of water reflected off of everything and she was so beautiful in the hot tub while we numbed our minds with the colors reflecting off of legs and arms and eyes and our stomachs as if it were some type of sacred ritual.

She scratches the skin off of the side of her thumb and hands it to me as if it's a gift. I reach for it, but stop mid grasp and stop, blushing when I realize it's turned into a big huge nasty sort of thing.