It creeps back into my mind. It finds every crack and every interstice that may (and does) exist. It slithers and slinks so silently, so perfectly, that it could be killing me now, and I'd be none the wiser.
The loss of control is palpable. Fingertips and toes go numb as the glissading vulnerability continually constricts, rendering me useless.
Rationality begins to sound the siren. Warnings and unnamed exclamation points swirl overhead. This isn't safe. Where is the net to catch me when I fall? Did the craftsman lose the fingers needed to weave it? Were his unique modifications replaced by the stainless touch of steel?
Retreat. My god, how I retreat to the safety of the lonely, melancholy brush that has been my shelter for so long. I do not know where else to go. I do not have the strength to escape. The smell of you alone would be cruelest form of torture from so far away.
I must keep myself safe. I must protect the bloody mass that I have slowly been tearing in my hands. But you have defeated every wave of ribcage soldiers I could have rained upon you.
You terrify me with your smile and how it can unravel me so. Curled, hunched, I am paralyzed underneath the weight of who you are and who you have made me: someone willing to love.