Hang

Too long spent treading water,
head bobbing up and down
between passing ships
and an array of distorted
messages in bottles

It was here that I realised the time to let go
and sink down into the depths of you
had arrived

But fear,
night terrors,
a gang of them,
their voices calling out like whale song
beneath the surface

Try as I might I cannot shake the feeling
that this shade is not a ghost at all
Rather a permanent stain,
the spreading of ink
across an otherwise pale blue
canvas

And it always arrives with the taste of decay
that dull screw
of a fragile hobgoblin
so pensive and grave