Last year for Halloween, you went as the minotaur. You pulled your Bulls cap low over your eyes and went to drink blood and sands alone in the basement, the ceiling pipes a web of loud heat above you. I stood at the top of the stairs in my Catherine the Great costume; I'd gotten lazy, and glued a stuffed horse to the crotch of my prom dress, thrown a sack of flour over my hair.
Needless to say, it didn't seem that funny anymore; not the pocket full of My-Little-Ponies with Barbie heads wedged on that I'd shoved into my purse, not this smear of you which somehow had a voice which somehow yelled up that you weren't coming to the party. I could have thrown the thread of my own voice down to find you, but I knew I'd be mixing metaphors, or at the very least giving you too much. I have given you everything I am already: a silhouette framed in hall light, a gap of shadow that loves you completely. And you have everything you need down there: those stairs, that bull's heart, everything you need to climb up here and fill me in.
Drawing is Gustave Dore's from the Inferno plates.
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