Bestürzt / Bewildered

I recreated the nights when

You exposed a part of yourself

That almost nobody knew about.

I did it without understanding it.

I did it naturally, your input.

 

I thought that made me special.

Special love. Special attention.

Secrets. Excitement. Darkness.

I became the stage manager as a child. Still.

Under your guidance.

The dream world that you confided in

Me, shared with me, responsibility.

Recreating the worlds where

People exposed themselves, and where

Everything would sink into oblivion

When the lights hid the past.

 

My hands left my body.

Onto your skin. Direction.

A ghost in the making.

Every single finger a magnet, a

Chain, my body convertible,

My moulded forms, your wet hands.

 

You made the room steam.

The cigarette stench eating

Every fibre of the carpet.

Eating me.

Dust, ashes, scent, reminiscent,

Engulfed in corporeal heat,

The language disrupted,

Shattering out in pieces,

Leaking, revealed, split in two,

At least, reassembled, you were

Never meant to fit, and you never did,

Neither you nor your echoes.

Within me, the turmoil you initiated.

 

I picked them wrong.

As a child still I let them in my room.

I didn’t know better. I felt something within.

Who called me? What? Called me? You?

Had you been dead by then? When I used the

Key to protect me? Isolate myself?

What my body urged me to do? In my

Teens? When I discovered bodies other

Than yours. When I discovered that I was

Speechlessly ahead, hooked but not wise,

Nothing had been expressed, everything

Had been muted, stuffed animals on my face,

On their faces, don’t look, don’t talk,

Let things happen, take them in, enjoy,

Don’t think, trust me, hold it in.

 

Your actions spoke for themselves

And yet derailed their traces,

I listened to you, your clandestine

Whispers, that I trusted to be caring

And considerate. Love in the making.

In your room, in mine, repeated, called for.

Desire. Unquestioned. Unanalysed.

Unscrutinised. Uncommented.

Disregarded. Blind eyes, stuffed, toys, I.

Your input. Putting out.

The cigarette. Your mouth.

Lips tightly shut. Blanketed. Surveillance.

The happy end for one of us.