Semi-conscious, muddy clarity
voices like static
buzzing, monotone droning
singing, sustaining single notes
whispering their sinister intentions
or moaning, screaming
“Who am I, what am I, where have I gone?”

A single voice to clear the static:
“I’m right here.”
A pause.
“Right behind you.”
Unsettling and dark
dripping poison on his lips,
a serpent, fallen, far from a protector.

Breathing ceases, pulse increases...
So this is what it’s like to be seen by demons.
He stares into my soul, the deepest recesses
the darkness dressed in best intentions
the gilded rotting apple of my heart...
A final chilling stare
he fades away to haunt me in my sleep.