Stockholm Home

I haven’t quivered beneath his shadow since I can remember because even that dark film has a gentleness over me.

I’m a school of fish swaying submissively in the belly of his current, but I’ve come to yearn for his order; for the straightening of my frantic lines; for the serenity he has to offer.

His thumb slides along my bottom lip to pull my eyes up, calculating. I’m sheepish. He angers at the idolatry of it all, swearing ungodly and feverish. That’s not love. That’s religion.

He knows it. And I know it.

I’m still restrained, and the locks alone are evidence we are both versed in what it isn’t.

“You’re never leaving here. Do you hear me?”

I know.
But I can’t reassure him for it will cement me here, should I utter it.

And yet there is a God in this basement with me, and I can’t reason with such a baseless faith