020
Bruce looked different from how I imagined him.
My head had conjured up a rotten image
of a tall, stout man
growling at the camera in the rain;
his face was tattooed with scars
that he liked to brag about
in run down bars
from early Saturday morning
to late Monday evening.
His clothes were clean, but wrinkled
and his eyes were squinted in an everlasting glare,
so drawn together that you didn’t even know
what color his eyes were.
None of these statements were true;
most were just over exaggerated.
Bruce was insubstantially bulky;
he was poorly elevated;
his face horrifyingly unscathed
and he was almost daintily harmless.
He was normal.
(Just the thought of this
scary silhouette that had been
haunting my dreams the most
these past few years
being even more average
than myself
made me want to burst into laughter
and tears
at the same time.)
“Hello again, you look like a wreck.”
Bruce smiled one of the ugliest smiles I’d ever seen.
Even his voice was so startlingly normal.
Oh, this is rich.
I couldn’t help it;
I laughed for the first time
in a year.
“Ah, so you don’t like my appearance?” Bruce asked,
looking unhurt.
I saw the smile creep up his face
with the elegance of a daddy long leg
and my smile dropped.
“How about this, Beverly?” And then his skin turned a sickly black
and his eyes became a piercing red
and his legs morphed together
and
he was one of them.
Fear had me by the throat now;
all my breathing seized
and my head went awfully numb.
He was one of them.
He was one of my demons.
That was how they had known where to find me.
“Maybe you’ll listen to me know, Bev?”
It’s mouth opened, the insides almost as red as it’s eyes,
and formed a wicked smile.
“W-ha…”
Was the only thing I could spit out.
God, I didn’t want those to be my last words.
It floated over to my bed
and beckoned Fear goodbye.
Bruce jumped out of It’s mouth
and turned to me.
“Dear, dear, dear, we have a lot to cover.”
