The Boogy Man

The Boogey Man

Exhaustion tears at my eyelids,

punches at my face until it droops.

Black eyes-

raccoons with smudged faces-

show the traces of lack of sleep.

Lines etched into my forehead

speak of the anxiety that flares in my chest,

makes itself a pest in the wee hours of the night.

And I feel the fright of what is to become,

shooting shards of pain into my belly.

The past blossoms and swells

until it fills my bedroom,

rapes my mind-

and I find that he…

with his thousand sharpened teeth…

is the Boogy Man beneath my bed,

filling me with constant dread

of these wakeful times.