Footsteps

In a deserted empty house
The middle of the night
Footsteps in an adjacent room
As I turn on the light
No one there, I lay awake
All night listening
For creaking floorboards
Bumping furniture
The footsteps come no more

Walking home on darkened streets
A foggy mist of rain
Footsteps soft on forest leaves
Breaking twigs inside my brain
I spin around in misty halos
Bats flit by the streetlamp
Nothing there, I walk again
Listening in the damp

Again, again, the hairs on end
All along my spine
And down both arms, a shiver runs
Footsteps keeping time
Across the roof under the moon
The dog whines on his chain
The click of patent leather shoes
Impossible to explain

What sort of creature silently
Walks rooftops late at night
But disappears in mockery
When I turn on the lights
Outside my bedroom window
Just before the dawn
I wake to sounds of breathing
I know I’m not alone

Footsteps pause behind the curtain
A dragging, shuffling fright
Madness messengers, I am certain
Footsteps come for me tonight