I have an overwhelming need to write tonight.  I sense my monster’s presence, hand sliding over one hip, slowly across my stomach, up between the ribs, finally grasping my heart’s center as he pulls me back into his shady embrace.   I struggle to resist the seduction of the sinister thoughts that dance through my mind enticing me, luring me.  There’s a whisper, “Just give in.”  It would be so easy and there is a strange comfort in familiarity.

 

His soft words, “I’m all you need.  Come, yield.  I know you as no other . . . every hurt, every sadness, every moment of doubt.”  He is always there, watching, listening, waiting.  He knows all of my secrets.  He knows the ugly, the pathetic, the arrogant, the vain, the selfish, the evil of me.  To feel him hard inside me, pounding me to submission, a perverted desire that smolders in the wilderness of my wounded heart.  Pain as pleasure, pleasure as pain, his offering.

 

This wicked wayfarer blows through my life.  As clouds obscuring the sun . . . his, the shadow on the radiance of my soul.  His gloom sucks the very color from the world, my perception monochromatic and surreal.  He pulls me down to him.  I have come to know, I cannot restrain myself alone.  His draw stronger than my ability to refrain.  He is relentless.  My attraction to his storm too intense to easily escape.

 

I reached to my other lover, but he is just a man.  How can he combat a demon?  Besides, he’s not there.  He is off slaying dragons of his own; while this phantom knight threatens to obscure me.  What words could he send enough to protect me from my nemesis?  Does it even matter anymore?  My menace’s objective already met in the devastation of my heart’s new love.  Now, one more thing to grieve.

 

There is another, a friend, but more.  His sword of wit always sharp and a shield of uncommon sense at the ready.  He builds a castle of laughter and soft words for me to rest within safe and sure.  His arms could be my haven, should I choose.  His honor forbids me to be untrue to another.  Such is his spirit more noble and wise than mine. 

 

I’m trapped.  No answer the one I want, none without harsh consequence.  To be released from this pain, is there anything more urgent?  Is there a choice without regret, without future condemnation?  The devil his due, I see only his cruel countenance at the end of any path I take.  No way out.  Checkmate.