The past trails after me as a cluster of memories that have failed to be forgotten.
They grasp my sleeves, wanting to hold me close, wanting to touch my face and kiss my eyes closed.
In the nothingness of nighttime, they sit aside my bed, indenting the covers, gazing, with hands made of old moments and goodbyes, they smooth down my skin and push pins through my eyelids.
They split my chest open with knives made of spilled tears and pull away the flesh like I have pulled away from living.
My heart doesn't beat, it lays as a place holder for the promise of days to come. My ribs, cracked yet still solid, cradle it fondly, protecting it from what the world has to offer.
Those hands scratch at me, squeeze the breath right from my lungs, pull my organs like they would pull a thread through a sewing needle.
My blood runs warm and gentle, it stains everything I've ever had.
When sunlight shines across the room and I am no longer a corpse of the night, those memories with their familiar fingers and unsettling presence once more fall behind me to create a shadow of who I once was and who I long to be once more.
