NightCreeps

As I lay here quietly breathing,
The quiet night outside perceiving,
My eyes upon the ceiling wide in fear;
The house below is still,
With no sound to break the chill,
Save the blood within my heart and in my ears.

In this dark and inky night,
There is no comfort, no respite,
As I lay with sheets drawn tight, just barely breathing;
Not a whisper can I hear,
With no movement far or near,
Just an empty blackness painted on that ceiling.

My breathing stops in fright,
As a sound dissects the night,
Almost silent is its flight, yet still is there;
First a scratch,
and then a scuttle,
As if far away and subtle,
But to me it cuts the heart of my despair.

It creeps stronger now and quicker,
As my pulse grows fast and thicker,
As I listen for a flicker of that sound;
And then a cold and creeping feeling,
As it crawls close to the ceiling,
Yet no nearer to revealing where it's found.

And now the scuttle turns to clicking,
As if jagged legs are pricking,
Many limbs that are now flicking closer still;
Yet my wide eyes are still seeking,
But no voice from me is speaking,
As the clattering comes creeping with a chill.

And now at last revealing,
I see them moving on the ceiling,
As my fractured mind is reeling from the sight;
A writhing, mass of things,
Black and twitching,
sharpened stings,
Across the ceiling it all clings -
a creeping blight.

Flicking, spidery creatures,
A thousand pointed ghastly features,
Poisoned pincers snap and chatter as they near;
A spindly mass of spines,
Through the darkness red eyes shine,
A sea of blackened blood that pricks with fear.

Across the ceiling they all crawl,
Bleeding closer down the wall,
Their pincers clacking as they sprawl towards my bed;
Up the bedposts they ascend,
Their spidery paths they all do wend,
Closer, closer to the end, my chest, my head...

I can feel their black legs pricking,
As up my chest I sense their clicking,
Fangs and pincers with their sickening biting chatter;
Up my arms and to my shoulders,
Their writhing weight bear down like boulders,
As the fear inside me smoulders as they scatter.

On my neck, I feel their bite,
Sharp and spindly crawl the blight,
Legs and pincers writhe and fight to reach my jaw;
Up my cheek,
my nose,
my lips,
I feel a hundred spindly tips,
As they force their way inside my stricken maw.

I try to call out, try to shout,
But the spiders writhe about,
Fill my mouth both in and out and stop my calls;
Then at last they reach my eyes,
Wide and glassy with surprise,
Feel their legs begin to prise and sting eyeballs...

Their is light.
I am screaming.
The room is empty.
I am dreaming.
I feel a warm and caring feeling hold me tight;
It is my father and my mother,
They say there's nothing there to smother,
I am having just another nightmare in the night.

They have soothed me, I am calmed,
There are no spiders that have harmed,
I lie down, far less alarmed, no creeping clicks;
Now gently they withdraw,
To leave me in the dark once more,
Just a frightened tired and weary boy of six.