because you like horror stories

I have been scaring myself shitless every night reading

lesser known Stephen King novels and watching 1980s

Japanese ghost movies I’ve read about on a horror website

but this is not me, watching a film, standing up

too scared to get back to the settee because the last thing I need

is to be comfortable and I am shouting at the little boy

to get out of the house. He knows he shouldn’t be there.

He needs to get back to his dying grandma she needs him

More than anyone but it’s too late now. There’s a hand

on his arm and I am standing in the hallway, I can’t be

in the same room as this as I watch the grandma die

I realise it’s only now this story is really starting.