For years I have known only you.

You, unfaithful lover, mutilated monster, blood-******* fiend.
You, walking cadaver, trash-filled ocean, rotting mouthful of cotton candy cavity.

I felt you first when their faces filled my mind with nuclear lies.  We walked the halls, hand-in-hand, eyes fixed on the laces of our shoes, desperately searching the cracks in the floor for our hollow reflections.  Together we were like widowed spiders, catching unsuspecting bugs in our twisted, silkened webs, and draining their insides for our own selfish use.  We were run-down strippers and streetside hookers, needles shared between haggard addicts shooting up MAGICDUST in blackened midnight alleyways.  I twisted my fingers with yours, knelt before thick lines spread upon deceitful mirrors, lies threaded between rolled bills.  I spoke your name before tornados and blizzards, blindly hummed your song in the presence of serial killers and wild felines with frothing, razored teeth.

For far too long I felt your wrath.

You, loaded shotgun, CLICKCLICKBOOM.
You, pointed blade, silvered hair, bloodied sheet smeared with scream.

I danced with you on wires of barb, 12341234, licked clean the wounds you salted with poisoned defeat.  I shot your arrow from a rusted bow and laughed, cried, prayed for the ****.  On weathered crags where nothing grows we testified our right to life, dug the graves of sinners and murderers, liars and thieves, then threw ourselves inside.  Six feet deep.  Like zombies we emerged, hungry for throbbing hearts and wrinkled lobes of brain.  Like hunters we searched, scouring mine fields and sunken ships for our hidden souls.

Many nights I succumbed to your power.

You, thick leather belt lashed upon my back.
You, vicious, vindictive virus pulsing thick through my veins.

I've tried to lead you astray from your destruction.  I threw you from marbled balconies and left you behind in dense, overgrown forests where I knew not my way.  I fed you to flesh-hungry pirhanas and strangled you in my clenched, white-knuckled fists, trampled your face with spiked heels and had you sleep upon hot coals.  Yet still you found your way to me, followed the trail of trembling hands back to my door and hid in the corners of rooms and the pages of books, waiting for your next attack.

From you I have learned.

You, wolf in wolf's clothing, howling at my moon.
You, filthy fox of the slyest breed.