Nightmare Maiden

Don’t wait for my return, my love, but if that day should come,
Would you drop the life you’ve made and have me yet?
You were the spike inside my coffee, the enigma in my eardrum,
And a prized catch in my butterfly net

You were the pillow in my arms when nights got spooky
When internal arctic winds would rattle through my bones like chimes
The sprites that we had seen inside our slumber made us kooky
We sang lullabies in vocal fry that didn’t even rhyme

Now, you’re my nightmare maiden, the ghosts up creaking in my attic
The specimen in formaldehyde and the gossamers in the grass
I moan and stir all night while you stay up wreaking your havoc
I won’t get my soul back after gazing in the looking glass

You’re a phantom in a phone booth and a twister of tongues
You read my lips and my diary and my tarot as well
You whispered like a banshee at the top of your lungs
”A man’s blood is a woman’s treasure-- I don’t kiss and tell”

The cats are clawing at the walls ‘cause even they know what’s wrong
You’re still the knife in my breast, you’re still the ink on my quill
So I’m raising what I’m drinking and I’m singing you this song
The dark lies in wait-- it’s you for whom I toil still

I’ll be heady from the moonshine of the lesser light
I’ll go sleepwalking when the petrichor is strongest
Something tells me that you’ll leave your door ajar tonight
So I can creep in when your evening's feeling longest