the fear

Sometimes I lay me down, awake
asleep, and paralyzed between
the night

and day.

And terrified.
The first time, it was aliens.
I knew it was,

by dream logic. That's how I later realized

it was a dream. I didn't see

a single living alien being, but

I knew who they'd come to get.

I lay there on my back, considerably

upset, and waiting worse.

I'd seen a ring of glowing white
emerge, in circled symbols of a kind

unlike you ever saw. Revolving,

slowly,
on the ceiling, right before
my very, very eyes

- this sight

was not just in my mind. I knew

paralysis

was just the start. A glow began

outside

- and went away.

It was a car.

I was awake.

Third time, the bedroom door
was open - and a shape, an ordinary
shape,

was standing, still. Outside
the door - the living room, ironically.

Not coming in. There was no one alive

this woman could pretend to be.

I knew it was no burglary. This bitch
was supernatural. This shape

was here for me.

To kill.

I stared her down, just long enough
for her to move, to prove
malevolence and will.

And I woke up

The bedroom door
was standing shut.

As movement flew back into limbs,
with day broke wide through window blinds,
I rolled from bed, and

and stretched, and yawned,

and felt quite well-disposed
to humankind.