H(a)unted

A poem about a haunting

Photo by Elti Meshau on Unsplash

This poem is part of the NaPoWriMo 2024 challenge to write a poem a day in April. This is the prompt for April 19:

Finally, here’s our prompt – optional, as always! This one comes to us from Moist Poetry Journal, which posted this prompt by K-Ming Chang a while back:

What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.

The phantom stalks 
In my mind’s deep recesses
A twisted reflection of halcyon days
From the depths of my subconscious 

I am hunted by a ghostly specter
A former classmate once full of life 
Who met a tragic end in a crash
His body nearly rend

Nights are cruelest when darkness
Descends like a suffocating shroud
I sense his presence in the wind as
It seeps in around my window’s edges

My heart pounds as I catch glimpses
His vacant eyes his still cruel smile
Hear echoes of his voice beseeching release
From eternal torment a plea for mercy 

We once shared dreams and laughter he said
Why did you live while I am dead
You should be here with me he whined
I will snatch your soul he proclaimed 

I try to flee but his words reverberate
In my head escape eludes me
His distorted image reflects in mirrors
So I cover hide them my soul filled with tears

He is determined for me to succumb
But I clutch a faded photograph of him
A captured fragment of time vibrant alive
Not the phantom that stalks my mind

That photograph now almost in tatters
My touchstone keeping him at bay
My heart heavy my reward for surviving 
Until it breaks until he steals my life force

And now in this moment in time
I lie on the coverlet my eyes weary resigned 
I hear his cruel laugh feel his breath near
And the photograph crumbles

He holds my spirit close to his
Embracing me preventing my ascent
I look at his ghoulish face see his cruel smile
You’ve got me I whisper I am here awhile

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