I’m Scared He’s Coming Back To Hurt Me
He is the black of night. He is the darkness I refuse to let people see. He is the rotten core infecting everything.
By 
Ari Eastman
I’m scared that he’s back.
I’m checking for him in closets,
pushing skeletons out of the way,
looking beneath my bed.
I am never afraid of the monsters I face,
I sleep with demons already in the sheets.
They sing me lullabies and tuck me in,
Kiss my feet.
Kiss my freckles and wake me up every few hours,
just to make sure I’m still breathing.
But I’m scared he’s back,
so I’m looking behind when I’m walking,
now I’m running down the street.
I’m looking under every garbage can,
turning over every rock,
leaf,
uneasy when I pass by shrubbery.
Emerald eyes,
He is the black of night.
He is the darkness I refuse to let people see.
He is the rotten core infecting everything.
I grip my knuckles until they start to bleed,
and I’m bleeding out his name,
bleeding out his face.
I’m bleeding out suppressed memories that tug at my attention,
they are ink stains in this grey matter,
it should not matter,
I say.
But I am scared.
Perhaps, he never even left.
He’s waiting in every dark alleyway,
behind my eyelids,
the shadow I can never really distinguish in my dreams.
I am scared he will find me.
I am scared he has found me.
I am scared he has found me.
I am scared he has found me.
He is not even here.
But somehow always with me. 
