I still see his face from time to time

lurking in the shadows

undulating in and out of visibility as the branches bend and sway

in the wind that disguises his voice into an indiscernible drone

that still manages to fill my heart with terror in its silence.

Still I hear the words echoing out as they play across bare, dried bark

tired from the battles waged in the winter months and in desperate want of rain.

He hisses at me from the past

warning me that he isn’t really gone.

It only seems that way

as I walk into the store, carelessly strolling and meandering through the fluorescent rivers of tile

parting the tension in the air like the waters of the Red Sea.

His footfalls silently shuffle along beside me

as he watches my every move,

hands tucked behind his back,

eyes piercing holes through my skull and

suspiciously analyzing…