Sounds
sputtering, moaning,
creaking.
Breath down my neck –
nothing.
Footsteps
scuffling, shuffling,
creeping up behind me –
nothing.

Swift and quick,
cunning and curious.
It’s there, I smell it –
oozing death and
secreting decay.
Withering flesh,
rotting sense.

Neither human
nor animal,
mangled by
the time spent alone.
Manipulated by
the echoes of death
and torn by the
light of life.

One could not call it
a soul, no,
far from that.
I perceive
something more honest
to the human nature.
Wicked, tainted,
unloved, tortured.

Whatever it may be,
it’s what I’m becoming.