wolves at the door [guest post]

there are times when that old devil comes peeking his head around the corner. Or he knocks on the door, lightly, just loud enough that I can hear him.
He likes to taunt me a bit, give me a hint at what's possible, and he knows that I know what a nasty fucker he is.
The thing about him is that he never actually dies. I can beat him again and again, but he'll never be gone for good. I've just revoked his citizenship. I've taken away his passport. I've cut off his legs, and he has to hobble around. He's the only cripple I take pleasure in mocking. Every time I laugh it's me slicing off another bit of his skin. My pleasure is, almost literally, his pain.
But the fucker's still alive. He can still taunt me, make me remember when he he used to beat me bloody. When he had me on the ropes.
"You could barely get out of bed, you coward. Remember that? You stayed up all night, just waiting for something decent to happen. You were nothing. You couldn't even move. Maybe you're still that coward. Are you? I think you are. I think you're weak. You can't even handle a woman leaving. You can't handle memories of the bad days. I'm going to ruin you."

These days, it's not even a fair fight. I've seen his playbook, I've watched all the video, and he never actually learns any new tricks.
Sure, he fights dirty, but then again so do I.

It can be anything that triggers his threats, really. An oddly warm day in the middle of January, and it's 2005 again, and I'm in hell. The woman I love will never come back, and it's hard to see how to get past that. I'm a couple dollars short, and I'm a failure again, a disappointment.

So I run. And clean. And work. And find someone to run around with.
He goes away. For a while. I can't kill him, but he can't kill me either.
I don't like Sundays.