you called me sister as you held me tight, tighter than you had ever held anyone before that point I assumed.

too tight.

tight into territory marked taboo because my mask did not gel with yours and beating hearts, in unison, entwined in the dance of an embrace that remained as our masks fell, with our bodies,

down,

down,

down into the realm of sleep where bed served as a refuge against the noise that was hollywood outside your door and...

there was safety in your taboo as my beating heart I entrusted to the comfort of your mask while my smashed walls crashed

down,

down,

down into a million little shattered fragments, scattered pieces of illusion in wolf’s clothing miraged as truth that was and is no more,

shattered by the very calmness of your voice, the weight of which leaves me gasping for breath, desperately searching for a way out of the pouncing darkness that envelops me as I attempt to lift my head, to reach out and grab the whizzing black and white memories as they are rushed out of the punctured vacuum of my heart into a world of vivid technicolor dreams called reality,

reality

pouncing past sepia and straight into a new awakening that leaves me a frenzied sunny side up as I am thrust towards a blinding sun, resplandescent in the depths of the mirror that holds the image that is this trembling, bare, crash and burn no longer called expectations but forever renamed

me.