I Have A Stalker And His Name Is Death

He’s always watching me

I can feel his steady eyes like cigarette

burns on the back of my neck

My stomach twists into knots at his mere

presence

The hair on my skin grows erect with

sweat as I hear his footsteps quickly

approaching

 

I’m not his first victim

And if one day I were to lose my sight and

footing and somehow end up wrapped

around his tendrils

I certainly won’t be his last

 

Out of my peripheral I can just barely see

half of his face peeking out from the

corner of the alley I walk through on my

way home

I don’t run or quicken my pace

Because I know if he wanted me today

He would have me today

 

But instead, the few times when he is not

mimicking my shadow on cracked

pavements

He leaves me little love notes on the

television set sitting on the shaky stand in

my living room

Channel 12 seems to be his favorite

And he always leaves these notes no later

than 6pm when the whole house is awake

And my mother has decided it is time to

bake

 

I should probably confess that his notes

don’t surprise me anymore

In fact he has become a bit of a cliché at

times

He reuses the same phrase one too many

times

He repeats himself as if writing the same

ten words in a different color ink would

make it all seem new to me

Eventually I got bored and I don’t watch

Channel 12 anymore

 

His love notes were no longer notes but

essays

Whole novels even but not the pretty kind

with the handsome man in a suit or a pair

of red lips twisted in a seductive, inviting

smirk

And it wasn’t the mystery kind with the

dark cover and blurred image to pique

interest

 

It was the thick ones with yellow pages

and brown covers with a single word

stickered in silver at the very top

The ones you pass in libraries taking up

dust and feeding oblivious worms

And just when I figure he had finally

decided to give up,

Foolishly hoping he had accepted my

unspoken rejection and moved on to the

next

 

He then decides to send me presents

So I stare at the small box wrapped in an

alarmingly bright colored gift paper on my doorstep

And I kick it

Is it a bomb? A severed finger? More love

notes?

 

That night as I sit in front of the television

with my unopened present

In my father strides with the heavy remote

and turns on Channel 12

5:58 pm and my heart is pounding

Do I open it? Do I dare risk my newfound

peace to accept another note describing

all the possible ways he could come for

me?

 

5:59 pm now and the television screen

glitches into static

Any minute now and the trumpets will

sound

I begin to undo the wrapping paper

But I do it in such a haste that I gave

myself a paper cut

The stinging sensation brings my attention

back to the clock

6:00 pm

 

The trumpets go off like alarms and the

television screen glitches into focus

There, sitting behind a curved desk with a

stack of unread love notes from Death in

her hand

The woman sits with a tight forced smile

She is about to deliver my first note in two

weeks

 

I open the box before she can speak and

and I gasp

At the very bottom, placed at an

intentionally awkward angle upon a pile of

old newspapers

I recognize a pair of eyes I said goodbye to

a few nights ago

Somewhere around a buzzing crowd of

music and laughter

 

The television screen flashes for my

attention again

And this time, there’s no evidence of a

cliché or plagiarism

This time, the note is no more than a

sentence

And it includes the only things that

actually matter

My name, my age, the day I was born, and

the date of my last day on this earth