Starry Nights Don't Trigger These Thoughts

I fell asleep with crumbs in my bed because they told me never to bite the hand that feeds you.

That's why it creeps along fire escapes and hard edged corridors, that creek, pressing you against the walls. And I let it get so close that I saw the whites of its eyes flash to yellow, my neck closing around my throat so that your hands didn't have to. The smoke poured through the window and the wallpaper flickered - a fairground full of paper people hiding behind its flocked pattern. I waited for the clock that never struck and the door that never knocked as I heard you breathing outside of my door. I could hear the sound of my eyelashes brushing my cheeks as I tried to decide which kind of darkness felt the safest. I bore holes in my bed sheets as I camped out until morning, waiting for the dawn to chase away your shadow and for you to fade back into my walls.