Graveyard Shift

Rising like steam, it comes
Infiltrating morning with murky haze
Hard to see, hard to breathe
As though watching life through a screen
Like nothing else, not real, not true
Cringing at every sound
Wondering how close or how far
Uncomfortable, uneasy, unprotected
Blind to the unknown


Seeking and searching, hands reach
To grasp at something, anything familiar
Anything real and tangible in the fog
Fear and doubt seep through cracks
Enemies of the light, creatures of night
Safe and dangerous all at once
Wrapping up in warm embrace
While shivers consume each vertebrae
A numbing daze, transforming


Tomorrow no memory remains
For, like a dream it fades away
But its vengeance still awaits and lurks
In the shadows, in the quiet lull
The next tomorrow comes too soon
Where nightmares seem like dreams
The sun cowers behind the clouds
As the smoky wraith quietly returns
To shroud the horizon once again