I dreamt two figures
bound back to back with
their own overgrown hair
tangled 'round locked wrists.
They crouched naked in the dark,
painted by lines of sweat running
through the grime of a long imprisonment
and the soot of torches - their only light.
Each figure's eyes were wide and
gaped into the smoke and guttering black,
unseeing, yet
bright with terror at the visions they chased
into deep corners;
the granite dome low above them, a Lascaux
of horrors projected there by
fevered eyes and fire.
The close dark of their cave
rang with screams as
time and again each fought to tear itself
from the other.
They were insensible of each other; they were
shoulder to shoulder, flank to flank;
struggled as if against the darkness itself,
even as bare feet slipped in shared sweat,
even as their cries probed the gloom in dischord.
They tore at one another,
one unable to stand for the other's efforts to flee,
back and forth,  a broken see-saw, until
sleep took them both. Falling to rest
heads on shoulders, cheek to cheek
they shared breath in a blind kiss.

I crawled through the darkness
purposed to free them from themselves as they slept.
But when I had cleared the matted hair and
filth from them, I saw
the wrists without hands, grown together -
shared flesh, fused bone -
and knew their torment well.