I crawl unnoticed
into your bed,
having done so many times before.
I know you.

Familiar is always inviting.
The warm sheets, welcoming pillows
bound reflexively around you.
I am that inch of the bed
you never knew.

Darkness and discomfort rapidly infect
the free-spirited bliss that befriends you daily

Toss left.
Toss right.

Your brain in my hands,
a black slab of clay

Open your eyes,
all that seemed so clear, now
clouded like a stone dropped
into still shallow water.

I decide to unchain you,
for you may manage your physical existence, but

I am the puppeteer of your alternate reality.

She always sang smoothly,
startlingly scrupulously,
after studying the stanzas for mere seconds.
Anglerfish Annie I called her.
A voice as pure as heaven lit her lure,
the one-way ticket that swallowed those kids
into an inescapable abyss.
I watched as those thirsty jaws grew dull,
and that mesmerizing light died out.
Hanging over the windowsill, atop that disturbed building,
her hauntingly beautiful voice showered down once more,
reverberating through my bones as it always had.
As the last note hurried to accompany its creator to the ground,
It was shrouded by the yells and sirens booming from the Institution.
I saw all the lost souls pouring out of her mouth,
And thought of how they knew Annie more than I did.