Night Gaunts (#9)
by Anne Fraser
I am waiting for the sound of a voice.
Your voice.
Your soulless voice.
I am falling into your voice, the verbs and nouns surround me, the
adjectives stab like ice.
You always did have a way with words.
Why have you come back? Why to me? I am no longer a child, you are
supposed to come only to the children, to scare them with the
boogey man who lurks in your voice.
You do not answer, and your silence mocks. Here I am babbling about the
ice that forms in my soul when you speak, and your silence drips
honey-like from your perfect scarlet mouth.
The lonliness comes like sudden summer thunder. Are you lonely? Can you
feel anythng at all but a vague triumph at my fear? I can hear
places in your voice, old places that have never see the sun.
Lonely places. Dark crevices where weeds lurk and small things scuttle
away from a footstep. Yes, the small scuttling things are in
your voice. I hear their claws scrape against cold stone when
you laugh.
And your eyes... Things move in your eyes, did you know that? Dark
shapes, half-formed, flit across your pupils and quiver under
your eyelashes.
Why will you not speak to me? Your perfect lips were made for words,
meaningless words perhaps, but I wish you would open them. Or
seal them against mine.
Yes, I would like a kiss.
Your kisses are a sleeping cat.
Still silent? Still cold, scorn in your shadowed eyes, a sneer on those
perfect lips?
Oh, speak to me...