This was written eight years ago when I was eighteen about a boyfriend I had. I knew nothing would come of the relationship, and I wrote it one night after he’d come around and fell asleep. Everything I predicted in here came true!!

You

Curled up like an overgrown kitten,

Eyes shut, mouth tight, contemplating

Maybe which muscle to twitch next.

Hair is mussed, shirt creased, so passive, so relaxed.

Vulnerability has been sketched on you by sleep

But I am here, I cocoon you in my arms

In my eyes, with my hands, watching you.

The lines on your face are erased, your hands

Holding me, a teddy bear from boyhood or your mother.

Or someone else inanimate. But for now I don’t care.

You are here beside me, in some deep sleep which mirrors

My own comatose of delusion, that you are what you

Cannot be, that you are this animal that is so soft, so sweet,

And you are under my control as I am dictated by you,

My little Hitler, my ultimate controller or sorts in this

Obsession so short that once it is over and exiled into

The land of memory you will be nothing but the

words upon this page, and you are nothing,

Just the curled up kitten, lay across me, the

Vulnerable little boy who, once awake, is the liar

And the cheat that will scratch me and spit

And drive me away. All tenderness faded

Into forgotten feelings of regret and time wasted.

But for now you are my kitten, my sleeping animal.