Bumps In The Night

Trust me. I know what it is. I've seen it's sharpened tooth stare at the end of my bed for almost a week now. It will wait until I lay my head down and close my eyes. And then it will seep out of the darkened closet. It will roil and slink along the floor up to my bed. Tumbling unformed shape rolling over itself.

And it will extend whispey black tendril fingers up over the blankets and across the comforter. To wrap around my head, and slide into my nostrils, and cover my closed lids. Like a cloudy vortex masking my senses from the real night. And then I'll be left with nothing but the haunting thoughts this specter leaves echoing in my thoughts. For hours. Tossing. Projecting.

Breathing it's acrid black breath for air. Inhaling every particle of itself into my lungs and dispersing itself to lodge within my synapses. Leaving no room for other thought there. And so it will haunt me. Until daybreak, when the spell and fog dispersed by the first rays of sunlight through the drapes force it to retreat from the shadows from which it came. Allowing my own thoughts to return, not quite whole or unadulterated and stained by the thing that dragged itself across my mind during the night. Only a vague half retrievable memory of a nightmare now gone once daylight has returned.

But in the twilight before sleep, no, I can recall it's greedy smile well. It waits for me as dreams no longer do.

Perhaps I shall keep the light on a while longer.