I Walked With the Reaper
One night I awoke to a dream
A figure of prominent terror hovered
Over my bed and asked me
If I’d travel with him
I joined him though my skin crawled
At every breath he heaved
Raspy and gurgling behind his dark tattered cloak.
I dared not look at him for fear he’d look back
Crippled over and cracking with every step.
I walked with him to a field
Laden with even laid stones
No names, just the stones.
He stood in a painful position I thought
And I wondered why he lingered at this spot
“Torment knows no names,” he said
And rose upright so high that it startled me
And my core felt penetrated as if frozen in ice
He was the Reaper I thought,
He’s come for me.
He then lowered back down, and silence,
More hallowed then death itself,
Haunted my thoughts.
‘I’ve walked this road alone each night
For as long as I can remember,” he echoed
“You’re the first to come with me.”
I felt a sort of strange pity come over me
And I placed my hand on his shoulder
As we stood in the dark shadows.
Suddenly the sound of distant voices circled my head
Beautiful voices singing from a brilliant light.
“the dead don’t walk with the dead,” he said softly
“the Living do.”
As he finished his words, his cloak fell flat
And he was gone. A pile of rotting black cloth remained.
I awoke to a woman who was hollering out
“My child, I nearly hit you!”
I was standing in the night air
In the middle of a covered bridge.
The headlights so bright I couldn’t see past them.
She wrapped her coat around me and
Walked me to her car.
The coat she wrapped me in
Was a black cloak.
Copyright © Tammy Armstrong | Year Posted 2006
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