‘Slip into My Fur’ by Patrick Barb

Your shoulder aches. Wooden splinters from the cracked doorframe decorate your close-cropped hair. The cabin’s quiet during the off season. I imagine your ears ringing — your conflicted fight-or-flight working overtime. But don’t worry, that’s why I’m here. You fly to me so we can fight — together.

My place on the floor before the fireplace offers a terrible angle from which to see your features, but the hitching of your shoulders between the gulping breaths suggests tears falling. You’re splattered with brown-and-tan mud, mixed with something darker, from your Doc Martens to your mid-section, helping me fill in the gaps.

Heavy rains the last few nights, a washed-out road. Easy enough to get stuck. Did you fall when you undid your seat belt and opened the driver’s side door?

The rain and mud drips from your body and onto the floor. Did you walk? Or run? I hear your heartbeat through your soaked denim jacket, so you must’ve run.

You ran to me.

Takes me back to those years before, when the killer you called Daddy bellowed a primal scream with the force to shake branches and send nested birds flying. All because he found you with his taxidermist’s daughter. 

Back by the smoker, your hands, eyes, teeth, and tongue explored. Curious.

The cabin was open and the wind blew the right way. I heard your whispers, tasted the beads of spit caught between your tongue and hers, smelled your joy — and then, your fear.