By Michael David Rawlings
Copyright © 2009
Have you ever stood in crowded halls and listened to the footfalls
that approach you and pass you and leave you stranded?
Have you ever sensed the faint and weightless drift
beyond the temporal stream?
Did you touch it?
Did you taste it?
Were you frightened?
Have you ever stood in the pouring rain?
Or felt a Dread so acute that you believed yourself to be teetering
on the very edge of the blackest hole in your brain?
Did you fall?
Have you ever walked on a rainbow?
Or felt the touch of a child’s hand—frail and tiny—
wrap itself around your smallest finger?
Did the air hold its breath?
Did time stop?
Did you stop?
I should have been a monstrous insect, with fetid breath,
hanging on your bedroom wall.
