A Loving Claw

I’d tell you what I saw

If I could recreate the scene

I mean—

A sight unseen

It doesn’t need a mask for Halloween

One fatal flaw

The smiling knife left in the other room

My doom

A waiting tomb

That beckons like a patient groom

Its loving claw

Deception, fire and ice around my waist

Embraced

Just one more taste

Of pressure that would leave my mind erased

I broke no law

But yet it follows me with ball and chain

The pain

A hostile brain

As darkness whispers, "You're insane."

And then a thaw

The frozen certainty I ferried cracked

I lacked

The strength I’d packed

A house of cards built from a deck that’s stacked

Breath through a straw

Temptation riding at a razor’s edge

To hedge

Abandoning my pledge

And take a leap off of the edge

But to withdraw

And linger in the six feet above ground

Profound

Even while I’m bound

I’ll fight the urge to turn around

I stand in awe

Of horror with no shape or even eyes

Surprise

A clear disguise

Is one you’d never think you’d recognize

From what I saw

You cannot finish what you don’t begin

A grin

An unexpected win

Behind me till we meet again