For all my good intentions
For any hope of minor peace
I know that it can happen
It will most certainly happen
I can feel it waiting
As I walk past the shadows in the lonely places
(Waiting like the dirt beneath fingernails)
A patient, brown, jagged claw
To come out of the darkness
Grab me like a curious child grabs a beetle
See if it doesn’t!
Every dark spot is a haunt
Every crevice a hangar in evil’s service
Every crack another opportunity for it to slither out
Wrap itself around my weaker leg
Take me for the last time
Take my life as easily as it fell onto Earth originally
And gained its ancestral sins
Like any other inheritable condition
Yes, I still fear
But I don’t fear the fear these days—
I expect it
I cherish it
An old friend…
Feeling it always
Day to night and into dawn
In shadows
In hazes
In smoke clouds
In cracks
In stopped-up gutters
In reflections in broken mirrors
In shriveled dreams, long disregarded
In a shattering of nightmare against the wall of sleep
No, I’m not worried
Except perhaps for what it might do next
After it’s done with me.
HARRIS COVERLEY was nominated for the 2020 Rhysling Award and is a member of the Weird Poets Society. He has had verse accepted for Polu Texni, Spectral Realms, Scifaikuest, Horror Sleaze Trash, View From Atlantis, Corvus Review, and Scarlet Leaf Review, amongst others. He lives in Manchester, England.