...Excerpt...

Shadows take from me the breath to be exhaled on a silent prayer of silvered temperatures…halting my thoughts, mid-wild, I still and recede to my own darkness, observing…rain stained temperamental glass, I glimpse one shadow stalking an impossible trail, of oleander and timber, concrete cracks that den arachnids, all laced in black ice…darting to a brick wall, where it seeps within the absence of a burned out light…another hunches as a shrub, low to earth and out of sheers shape, it catches my attention, rising and in the blink of sight, stands beneath the street lamp, a clouded intention, we stand our ground until I’m blown out like a candle, nothing remaining in my place, but soot flecked smoke reading of my direction…from an ebon haze of sleep, eyes boring through me, I lift my lids to a third, kneeling at my bedside, a curse or benediction at its lips, I startle in realization and gasp, wiping an invisible touch from my flesh, I’m not for the saving, not for the slaughtering, not a sacrifice, neither a saviour, it sinks to the depths of floorboards, leaving me no choice but to invoke a spectre to stand guard, I blow it a kiss and roll into a slow-motion rhythm…shadows paint my walls in flame driven lantern dance, I float within their limbs, in a saturating realization, not to banish them, nor sever the connection…they harbinger and pique my curiosity…of who is to come…

E.A. O'Connell