Your clinging companion,

Your forever worsening pain

brushes against me laying awake

like something has joined us

in bed driving you deeper

deeper into your despair

and my deepening helplessness

I lay awake listening to you sobbing

You trying to ignore the throbbing

Of your malevolent muscles locked

like gritting teeth under foreign skin,

pulling your neck tight, a fisherman’s knot

of sinew and fiber, gripping you and even me

me by the heart and you to your very being.