The Visitor (2)

Nobody saw you enter
And you didn’t bother to knock.
I don’t know how long you’ve been hiding here,
Though with hindsight, I might have known.
You turned down the volume,
Yet somehow increased the noise.
You dimmed the lights
And filled the air with a strange electric charge.
Dark netting screened out the real world -
It could still be seen, but seemed so far away
With no obvious means of return.
You turned up gravity
And spread treacle all over the floor,
Making it difficult to move.
You interfered with time,
Which moved so slowly that its hands creaked with pain.
Mere moments seemed like eternity.

All of this, I took in my stride,
Until things started to disappear.
I noticed that my reserves of patience and perseverance,
Courage and confidence were depleted.
You undoubtedly added them
To your collection of other stolen goods:
Months, grades, opportunities and jobs.

When winter came
And nightfall grew ever earlier,
I had no choice:
You had to leave.
The curtain of darkness outside
Merely enveloped
The blackness, heaviness and illusion of isolation
That you’d created inside, by
Playing havoc with controls
That did not belong to you.
It was difficult to evict someone
Whose presence spread like tendrils
Into every corner, every crevice;
Everything that could be touched.

Even when you’re gone,
Your traces cling to all I think and feel,
Altering life’s colours with such subtle shading
And somehow creating beauty despite yourself
Which can be seen by those who choose to find it.