The horrors follow me to bed, their call becomes inescapable and loops inside me like an empty chant. Wind in the darkness. I press myself against the crags of my partner’s sedation and look for comfort, digging at her rocky stillness. Mountain dwellers carve their homes out of the inhospitable. They find their peace in equalling adversity. You can’t be mad at nature. It is inscrutable. I apply myself again to the cold rigidity and say this into her hair. You are inscrutable. I love her for having no blame in this and fall asleep thinking of the knife.

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