You keep the quilt pressed close to a sweating forehead,

The golden light on to scare the dark

Yet you jump at the sound of the mechanical lark.

Your wild eyes are forced open

In a terrified trance you cannot deny

You pray that no wolf will jump for sheep over a fence so high.

The lark screeches like an owl in the night

Twelve chimes it shrieks

And your heart leaps twelve times.

The creak and growl of silence chills each bone

The pounding in your ears a constant hum, a constant drone

And shall you live to see the light of day

You ask a deity you didn’t believe in until now

And if you do then how?

Many have survived but you know of only some

So you pray your door is shut tightly, might the monsters come.

And you whisper to yourself:

Will the monsters come?