words

the world is watching and hearing your labored breath,
hollow sounds in the night that pull your soul apart
and cause your bones to tremble, the belief that out
in the dark there are things you cannot defend yourself
from, cannot escape, cannot outrun, cannot understand.

in a momentary lapse of logic comes the flash of fear
that grips your chest and sends reason from out your lungs,
the despair in knowing you are not alone, in being
vulnerable to the will of shadows with teeth and claws
with viscous grins and able stares and gnarled fingers.

the eyes in the back of your head relay terror and shock,
a glimpse of the beast no prayer will rebuke nor will
sacrifice appease, for god in creating man did not supply
the proper armor to defend such mortal flesh from that
which penetrates the heart and the thread of sanity alike.

no book or candle will protect you from the vesicant,
you will linger in shadows like a leper filled with shame,
distant and ever vindictive not towards the creature
that has made you this way, but against the agents
of your own recourse that failed to keep you safe.

-S.C. Martinez