He and She

1.
Troubled.
Troubled are the waters
rushing through his head;
the undertow carries away
all good things
to be smashed into the
rocks.
Angry.
Blood boils over low heat,
and it burns;
he's easily maddened,
but rightfully so.
Haunted.
Every turn of a corner
begets a new horror;
he's locked in a sinister
old house filled with
demons.
Dark.
The darkness gets so lonely at times.
It isn’t much unlike the womb,
except that it lacks any semblance
of comfort,
and this womb belongs to
a teasing
tormentor.
Sleepless.
Because when he sleeps
the restraints on his mind
become unfettered,
and his soul vomits all of that
evil.

(He cannot escape it.)

2.
Innocent.
Like a child,
her inability to grasp
the darkness
makes it impossible to try
to explain to her.
Pure.
The way she softly smiles
when she sleeps
says that there are no nightmares;
she is not disturbed,
for there is nothing disturbing
inside of her.
Nurturing.
Like a mother to its child.
She may not want children,
but she treats everyone
as though they're hers.
Naive.
She thinks that she knows
the things of torment,
but she has never heard
malicious voices
as she lies in bed alone
at night.
Good.
There is only goodness inside of her
and she knows it.
She retches over indecent actions,
like someone chopping off an ear,
or a man being fed his own
brain.

He looks on her and something
good swells up in his chest.
She looks at him and is filled with
sweet sadness.
Each craves the other for entirely different reasons;
they're just not the same kind of creature.