The instant it reaches you

There was a silence you had never heard

first.

It was not empty: it pulsed, as if something

Would hold his breath with you.

The walls seemed closer together, the

thinner floor, as if underneath there

Was another room, hidden, alive.

Every step you hadn't taken, every word

you hadn't said, it was there, compressed

in the air.

He brushed your skin without touching you, but you

Did you know.

You knew it was going to happen.

And then - without warning - it came to you.

on.

Not a noise, not a face: a presence.

So close to feel the heat, so intense

To erase time.

He was no longer a shadow.

He was here.