I do not shriek at bedtime, when the bad cacciatore twitches in my belly, and the mushrooms knock a fearful tattoo at my throat.
Instead, I glide through the vestibule of shadows that lies between the bedroom door and the mattress past the closet's maw - a crypt from which I have exhumed many a princess whose sweet caresses last only long enough to cuff my trust into terror; their butternut breath on my smooth cheek scratching valleys down which my tears may flow into my open mouth where the salt tingles on my tongue as I cloak my doom with the incantation of the innocent: "If I should die before I wake...."