Jami Patterson Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

'Horror ' Contest Info

Sponsor Seth Pina

Contest Name Horror

03/14/2026

The Velocity of Shadows

The air has turned to iron in your lungs,
tasting of wet copper and crushed pine needles.
You are a frantic percussion of boots on mulch,
a heartbeat thundering against your ribs
like a bird trapped in a cage of bone.

Behind you, the woods are exhaling.
A sudden plummet in temperature follows your heels,
a localized winter that frosts the sweat on your neck.
You hear the snap of a cedar limb-
not the heavy crunch of a predator,
but a sharp, crystalline crack,
as if the air itself is breaking under the weight
of something it cannot hold.

The scent of the forest shifts.
The damp earth is gone, replaced by the smell of ozone and the static-dry tang of an
approaching storm,
though the stars above are perfectly mockingly still.
You scramble over a fallen oak,
your palms raw and weeping sap,
convinced that if you look back,
you will see teeth, or fur, or a mask.

But the forest is a mirror in the dark.
The faster you run, the closer the cold clings.
Every time you veer left, the wind howls left.
You aren't being hunted by a beast
waiting in the thicket.

You are simply trying to outrun the one
holding the pen.

I have been running right behind your eyes
the entire time.

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