Fear

They say he’s like me.

Eyes and nose and pairs of limbs,

Flesh and bone;

His tread no more than a whisper,

They say

 

He’s been calling for me.

Thump….thump….thump….thump….

He knows I am here;

He knows they are here too.

He knows, he knows, I can see.

 

Huff….huff….huff….

 

The road seems narrow enough,

As narrow as it can be;

The towers too high, towering over me;

It crushes my eyes, it presses my ears�"

I can’t hear, I can’t see!

 

Thump..thump..thump..thump

He knows I am here.

 

I only just realize

I am not breathing.

 

My head thrashes around wildly;

My pace has quickened;

Huff..huff..huff

A mad dog stares, the old stray stares--

Their grin knows something I don’t,

Something about me.

 

And it’s them. And it’s them all around,

Glaring from the shadows, them,

And their raucous laughter

Them, with their torn shirts, hanging from pot bellies,

An awful shriek, and a hard day’s work;

Them, in their time. And me.

 

I can’t take it anymore.

I am rushing, rushing, tripping,

I am choking,

From the scream, curling in my throat--

I am not screaming.

 

THUMP.THUMP.THUMP.THUMP

 

I am almost there.

Drenched, shaking, my ears ringing;

I think he has seen�"

He seems to be laughing.

I don’t know where I may be.

 

 

 

Reviews

[STRAND]

I read this one a few times and was lost on both attempts. Maybe it was the distraction of trying to visualize dogs with shirts hanging off their pot-bellies? There's a poem but its like this vague thing hanging in the mist.

[taylor ski]

I liked the repetition you used since it made the emotion and the actions and thoughts seem all the more real.