Until You Find the Body

I sit up and gasp as if 
breathing stops with sleep and I need 
to suck in air to move

Something big and dark and nameless
cracking trees like twigs

Trying to convince myself that
the quality of the light is not strange

Sticks curled like fingers
Branches bigger than an arm

The beast had lost a limb even as I slipped 
from room to room in the darkness

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