Contract

Dear Reader, I agree to turn my skin inside out, to reinvent every lost word, to burnish, to steal, to do what I must in order to singe your lungs. I will forgo happiness stab myself repeatedly, and lower my head into countless ovens. I will fade backwards into the future and tell you what I see. If it is bleak, I will lie so that you may live seized with wonder. If it is miraculous I will send messages in your dreams, and they will flicker as a silvered cottage in the woods, choked with vines of moonflower. Don't kill me, Reader. This neck has been working for years to harden itself against the axe. This body, meagre as it is, has lost so many limbs to wars, so many eyes and hearts to romance. But love me, and I will follow you everywhere - to the dusty corners of childhood, to every downfall and resurrection. Till your skin becomes my skin. Let us be twins, our blood thumping after each other like thunder and lightning. And when you put your soft head down to rest, dear Reader, I promise to always be there, humming in the dungeons of your auditory canals— an immortal mosquito, hastening you towards fury, towards incandescence.