I find myself forgetting more and more frequently
that the world I have painted on the walls of my cell
is not reality

Death is a boy to me
An ageless boy with brown, curly hair and golden skin
He is an egotistical trickster, three steps ahead of me
Cruel, unfair, unfeeling
And for some reason, intrigued by me and the messy Life I breathe

In my head, I can make deals with him
In my head, he protects me, gives me choices, even as he pulls me closer
In my head, he is beatable
In my head, Death and I are falling in Love

But though it makes Death bearable to think of,
to believe it has characteristics it cannot is dangerous

Death loves me no more than it loves all of us
An embrace at the end of agony
It will not speak to me, it will not listen
It owns my Life and there is no deal I can make to change that

Yet

There is something beautiful about the boy in my head
Death a life of its own
A vision I can't escape
The walls around me painted the endless black of the stars