Trolling Memories

I am here beneath the blanket you smooth over, not seeing the small bump i occupy when you return at day’s end you’ll wonder why there are crumbs and coils of hair between your toes but you’ll never roll over to see that I am still here, unspeaking terrorizing in the only way I can stuck here in this place you carried me like a parasite on your traveling skin once I existed in a virginal state of old-growth forests as far as my barefeet could run and you came erasing all my hiding places so i hide right next to you now but the stroke keeps you confined to your side of the bed, your side of this world we share, and you’re quietly unaware of what I do at night while you’re hiding beneath the pure cotton sheets, the color of old blood, sitting there for the decades after I hid my head as you peeked and pulled neverminding my feigned erasure of myself my total stiffness, eyes tight conjuring the tale of sleeping beauty, and you offered a troll bridge I didn’t want to cross but since we’re here now I’ll take your place since you’ve forgotten where you

left off.