Box Room

Photo by Deborah Barlow. Source: https://slowmuse.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/nothing-but-wild-emptiness/dark-room-light-through-window-hunched-man1/

I sit across the floor from him. The devil. 

Or her? I don’t know. She was everything I wanted him to be. But I resist his friendship and suppress her lust.

My eyes are so heavy. I shake my head and blink hard in attempt to wake my senses again for another 10 seconds. God I want to sleep. No, I want eternal rest.

I know if I close my eyes she will crawl over to me. He looks tired too, but confident.

​This is a game of chess, no pieces. 

We just sit here staring at one another. All day. All night. Anticipating one another’s next move. 

Sometimes she stands up and paces his side of the room in fits of whispers, screams, and laughter. Every once in a while he stops and smiles at me. I can’t see anything but her teeth and maybe a shimmer of light reflecting off his dilated black eyes.

I stay down here with my back against the wall and feet sprawled out. Sometimes she’ll kick my foot or spit at me, but I wait down here in silent prayer and groaning.

Scholar’s Mate? Sometimes I muster a laugh at his cheap moves on me, but I must not get cocky and my thoughts cannot go numb for that is when she would insnare me and put me in his griping chokehold.

I woke up in this room one day and have never left since. There are no doors but one small rectangle like opening near the ceiling to let light in. 

I’ve lost count of the days but I’m somewhere in my twenties, though my spirit feels ancient. 

I don’t know how this ends or how I die, but I hope to leave this room hearing the words “well done.” 

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