Haunting

I spent this morning leaning on something
wrapped in comforters, stacked with pillows
so I couldn't tell what it was, couldn't tell
that it was hard and cold,
couldn't tell that it was a tiredness that would stretch
like taffy being pulled, pulled, pulled
as I stare at the floor
not wholly unconvinced that my time was being wasted
and this is in fact not where I need to be.

The thing under the blankets unfolded around me,
nondescriptly taking up the whole sky to cast it’s shape
over the campus and the cars and the people.

It’s the wall closing in the voices
making them reverberate and echo,
it’s the floor under my feet, the ground under the snow,
it’s a mask that the future wears as it hovers in front of me
no matter which direction I look.

It waits every place I think to go,
it lurks in the words I read as it reads me.

When I take deep breaths it flows into my lungs
stopping the air with its ghostly shape,
blinking slowly as it flowingly drifts between blood cells,
pawing at the synapses, pulling nerves
like they were puppet strings.

I am always in it’s living room.
I take a seat, waiting
for introductions.