Dating : The Creature

Glaring eyes, popping out,
struggle to detach from their gluey nests,
following me through the room. 
Curled behind the terracotta oven,
I tremble
before blurry, accusing, bulging eyes.
The shouting,
that shouting again:
Shrill, persistent, sharp — 
the bark of a seal
squashed between two sinking submarines.

I never knew the Creature’s face,
how many arms it had, 
the color of its fur.
I never touched its troubled, 
liquid lips.
Fixing their glasses on pointed noses
doctors took notes,
scribbling thousands of textbooks,
digging for every detail
to draw the Creature’s treacherous traits.
How presumptuous to think
they’ll get its portrait right!

Its braying mouth 
wildly reverberates
on the white kitchen wall
its putrefying teeth,
dangling from yellow gums,
its slinky tongue, 
hanging on a side,
like a bored mermaid tail,
swinging on the brink of the sea.
That scream again.
One hundred howling monkeys
cannot compete with it.

No way to pin it down.
The Creature morphs
like smoke in a mirror.
One morning, its jelly flesh trembling
on the soft salon sofa — 
it talks to other creatures
from other unknown worlds.
The next day it hunts purple shadows 
along the old house’s halls.
One evening it spreads widely, 
like a moss blanket in the forest,
and digs out trees.

Its startling seagull squeak
wakes me up in the night.
My pores grow into scales
and I dive deep, 
so deep
into the ocean hidden beneath my bed.
Thank God, the Creature can’t swim! 
Yet, its stinky smell of fetid fish and algae — 
still navigates my nostrils,
intoxicating my lungs.
I’m hardly breathing,
blooming a blue desire for crying.

I can’t remember the Creature’s swampy, sleazy shape.
But I can see it crawling towards me, 
its rotten teeth ready to bite. 
Even now, a lifetime after
and thousands of tears apart
I remember its eyes.
Gloomy, green eyes gaze at me,
running red rivulets,
gliding closer and closer, 
like a ship reaching the lighthouse.
Only one breath apart.
Kissing my forehead.

Yes, that’s all I remember.
Those screechy screams
and green eyes.
My father’s.