What is this haunting darkness,

What is this haunting darkness,

Chased with shadows,

That stretch and flex

Their shapeless form,

Into this fractured room.

A wicked claw,

That flows beneath

The anchored safety

Of a door,

That once stood, proudly open,

To bleed with menace

Upon the bedroom floor.

Splintered shapes

That rise and fall,

Dance in silhouette,

Dissolve in my

Imagination,

Become this pale death mask,

That plants itself

Across my face,

And squeezes tight.

A night invasion,

Wordless meaning,

Other worldly screaming,

Thoughts that wreak sublime

And endless suffocation,

Of all home comfort.

Until the flooding of the light

Stems the restless tide,

Quells the fear

Bemoaned by day,

And claimed by night,

In sufferance of

Pain and pride,

Would we were all

A stranger to it.

But once death

Has passed this way,

And hollow grief has claimed us,

The loss of hopeful possibility

Pervades the night,

And steals the cloak of evening,

The romance of darkling’s shadow,

Softly falling.

Tears it into strips,

With jagged edge,

Of tooth and claw,

To fill the darkened space

With brittle bone

And rusted tears

To streak the face.

And soak the lump filled pillow.

.

Infected,

Vampiric bite.

Bloodied demons

That in sweat and fevered

Imaginings

Seek to possess

What once, was

Only peaceful sleep.

Claim it, as

The province of the night,

And in its stead

Make a cell

Of this rumpled bed,

Made to reside on the dark side

Of the light,

Laid in restless fear,

Until morning.

When dawning brings

Its brief relief.

A sweet escape,

From the unfurled cape

Of the night thief.