We nestle up to the devils we know
Their pointed tails rip the mats from our hair
Their forked tongues coil around our forearms
Their flared nostrils sniff us for trace evidence

We hand them our work schedules
We give them creative control of our daily planners
We wait with our eyes on the floor
Hoping they leave us with enough time to sleep

They critique the smiles from our faces
They say, “That’s not your mouth
Where’s the strain, where’s the fear?”
They won’t let us pass until we grovel

They ask questions
With a tone that tells us they know the answers
They ask us questions
So we can confirm their hunches
They know that our hands were in the cookie jar
That we snuck off at night
That we went looking for validation
That we stepped outside the bounds of their control
We let them get their hooks in
We let them push us around
We let them work our jaws
From the inside, and prop us up at dinner parties

They domesticate us
So they don’t have to hunt us down
They bind us
So they don’t have to break our legs

At night, they scratch us beneath our chins
They whisper, “This is beyond your control,
You are beyond your control,
That’s why you keep coming back”

We let them hit us
Because we know what it’ll feel like
We let them rummage through our minds
Because they’ll never find something new
We tell them our secrets
Because we know that they’ll expose us
We give them our trust
Because we know that they’ll fuck us over