It Follows

I sternly order it away.

“You are not welcome here.

No longer. You must leave.”

It seems to disappear,

but that is only to deceive.

Then it howls, loud and clear

and settled in to stay.

I pace from room to room,

to catch the moment just before

it finds my hiding-place

and squeezes through the door.

It settles in every space

every closet, every drawer

like dust settles in a tomb.

I walk away, it follows.

I try to burn it out of sight.

Neither the softest colored glows,

nor the harshest blinding white

can murder all the shadows;

so everywhere, in every light,

it finds the dark, and grows.