The Beast

Sometimes I would hear it

Howling deep in the forest

And sometimes I heard

The screams of its victims

Muffled by the dark, dank foliage.

I thought that only the weak

Could fall to its clutches.

I believed that only the infirm

would feel the terror of its claws.

Then one dark day

As I followed the well worn path

I strayed, tripped,

And it was there, growling

Its eyes red as the devil's

Drool dripping from its powerful jaws.

It savaged me with its terrible teeth

Leaving a deep bloodied wound.

I wept with its pain

And could not earn my daily bread

Such were my injuries.

For weeks it would return

To finish the job.

Scratching at the window,

Sniffing at the door,

Howling outside my room

When all was black.

But I showed it the healer's potion

And it retreated, confused

And left me to nurse the vivid scar.

Oh, how it would itch.

With each new moon, the scar faded,

Though I sensed the flesh was weaker now.

A lurid line that throbbed

And reminded me of what was out there

And what was in here.

It has a taste for my blood now,

And knows of my weaknesses

Returning when my guard is down

To open up old wounds

When my back is turned.

Once it dragged me to the edge of an abyss

Where I fought its grip.

A losing battle but for a passing Samaritan

Who helped me chase the beast away.

Then a soothsayer helped me build

A fortress of thought;

Incantations to ward off

My nemesis.

It haunts the past and bedevils the future

Fearing only the present as a hunting ground.

So now is where my strength lies,

A temporal refuge.

The palisade needs monthly repair

Weaving new words into the barrier

Tying them off with threads of the moment.

But the beast is cunning

And sends its minions to unpick the strands as I sleep

Threatening to let me go

Where what could have been and

Where what might be.

But as long as I am, so shall I be strong

And the beast shall haunt my soul no more