Comfortable Madness First PDF 4-13-18

Love and Madness
Our bed was old. Knots of stuffing kneaded my spine.
Springs tried to push through, to stab me in the ribs. Tayla lay next
to me reading The Dead Man Poems.
“There’s this guy,” I said. “He’s following me around.”
Tayla’s eyes got wide. She put her hand on my wrist.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s this guy,” I said.
I petered out for a second. Things got strange and thin.
Images fluttered like leaves through my mind. A faceless man.
Hands wrapped around my waist. A dick, huge and fierce, stabbing
into my belly. I wanted to punch him. I wanted him to get the hell
away and let me go back to my crazy but comfortable life.
“Butter?” Tayla said.
“A dream,” I said.
Tayla got this look on her face. I knew this look. This was
the look she got when she was starting to think that maybe I was
losing it. I’d seen it before. Too many times. It was a closed, hard
look. I hated it.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Really?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“It’s a dream.”
Doubt soured things for a moment, but then she kissed me.
“What do you need?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
And that was it. She kissed me and smiled. There were
things between us, time and history, scars and scares. Something
was coming but there was nothing we could do about it, so I
pretended it didn’t matter.