I fear you.
I built the walls to keep the dark at bay,
To guard the threshold from the things that bite,
I prayed for dawn to wash the ghosts away,
And leave me tethered to the morning light.
But shadows have a way of shifting shape,
Of wearing masks that mirror what we know;
There is no lock, no iron-wrought escape,
When seeds of terror are the ones you sow.
I watched the kindness wither in your eyes,
The soft edges hardening to jagged stone,
I saw the truth beneath your thin disguise:
You carved the very face I’d feared to own.
The claw I dreaded now belongs to you,
The hollow voice that whispers in the hall,
The nightmare that I always somehow knew
Would be the hand to let the curtain fall.
You are the storm I studied from the shore,
The wolf I barred the heavy wooden gate,
I do not fear the darkness anymore—
I only fear the monster you create.