The Bedside Lamp

How can this be love
If every time you turn off the bedside lamp
My soul shivers in fear that it isn’t you,
That your dark shadow is a metaphor of my dark past,
That each time you twist and turn on the bed
The wooden creaks swim into my ears
To remind me of the monsters I met before I met you,
To instill a fear of uncertainty in me
That the person sleeping next to me is no one
But a nightmare of all the memories engraved deep
In the folds of my skin, in between the crisscross of my veins
That I dare not sleep on the other side of the bed
For that dark place isn’t mine to take,
That I dare not turn sides to sleep facing you
For the monsters of wounds might crawl out
From under the bed if I don’t keep watch,
That I dare not snore for it might wake you up
And you, like all the shadows I wish I didn’t remember,
Would paint new scars on my arms
Like tattoos on someone’s face gone a little wrong
By brushes tainted by another colour
Mixed with your hue of love- from gray to black?
It isn’t love if every morning I run to lock the doors
When you go out to work and I need to look at a mirror
To see if I aged from the previous night,
To observe what a sleepless night can do to my face,
To place a fist on my chest and wonder if my heart is still intact,
To learn to smile when you come back later to my lair
And pretend it’s love when you turn off the bedside lamp.