The Gilded Leash

He taught me that a real man never shows the broken stitch, so I button up the seizures and pretend that I am rich. He drives my legs to walk somewhere, I never know the place. I feel him laughing as he grinds the marrow of my face. Do you know what it's like to feel your own tongue turn to glue? To watch him pull my eyelids up because he likes the view? He lives between my knuckles and the hollow of my chest. Each time I try to pray, he beats upon my chest. The contract wasn't my idea — he used my frozen hand. I thought I was the master. I'm just the promised land. I don't remember who I was before he climbed inside. He says my name is just a room where he comes to hide. I let him pull the levers now. I let him stretch my skin. Sometimes I try to cry — he's already laughing from within. If you listen to the rustle of my suit, you'll hear the second heartbeat and the clicking of his root. I am not the man who signed. I am not the man who fell. I am just the house he lives in — and he loves the smell of hell. There is no queen. There is no throne. There is no one to save. Just a gentleman in a broken skin, already in his grave. But the gentleman's still smiling. Oh, the gentleman's still smiling. The gentleman has forgotten how to stop.