Thirteen,
on Lincoln Street,
I read by forbidden light -
a plastic flashlight breathing weakly
beneath the blankets,
its beam a narrow tunnel
through cotton and heat
The house slept.
Floorboards settled.
My parents’ doors stayed closed.
Only the clock downstairs
kept its careful pulse.
Inside my blanket cave
the air thinned.
Each page turned louder
than it should have.
Elizabeth stood waiting.
Mary Shelley placed her there -
bridal white,
a candle trembling in her hand.
A room prepared for joy
holding its breath instead.
The corridor stretched behind her.
Too long.
Too quiet.
I knew that hallway.
Outside my bedroom
the dark ran from door to door.
My closet leaned open.
The window held nothing but night.
Nothing visible -
only the thought of it.
Back on the page
she waited for Victor.
Believed love meant safety.
Believed morning would arrive on time.
Somewhere unseen,
the creature moved.
Not rushing.
Not growling.
Simply present -
a grief with hands.
My flashlight flickered.
The beam thinned
to something unsure.
Mary Shelley wrote the corridor.
I walked it barefoot.
Every shadow in my house
acquired weight.
The air felt occupied.
I stopped reading
before the last page,
heart loud beneath the blankets,
afraid to follow her
where she was already going.
On Lincoln Street
nothing happened.
No door opened.
No breath at my ear.
Still, long after I switched off the light,
I lay awake
seeing her there -
white against the dark,
candle small in her hand -
and behind her,
not yet touching,
not yet speaking,
something
that had already
entered the room.
GBS jr
2008
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