The Haunting

Its soft stealthy footpads are silent but I
know the creature is there, stalking me as
I sleep, the hissing heat of its breath
moist and foetid like that of a carnivore
spreading its toxic miasma into the bedroom
enveloping my bed, suffocating me, now
and then rousing my restless slumber
and I tense to its ghostly, ghastly presence
a shadow large and menacing, there one
moment, gone the next. Its sleek striped
skin ripples sinuously as it prowls
restlessly, relentlessly, refusing to leave
my consciousness, and once again I
wonder at its hostile hunger never yet
fulfilled and why it returns ceaselessly
as though it is my mind that controls its
presence and has forgotten the key to its
absence. The slavering beast governed
by the legislature of nature's survivalist
instincts waits for me, but I am not yet
ready, I have no wish to join with it, as
human sacrifice to its animal need to
consume to live, like death ever lurking.