Love’s ghost of Octobers past hovers close
tonight and eerie silence hangs here low,
settling down and seeping into me so
that I feel in bulging veins varicose

serum that renders me near comatose.
Shrieks and howls and last lover’s laughs below
rise up to taunt my innocent hello,
suck me into memory’s fields morose.

All this because I ventured just beyond
strict boundary of present daylight, into
hazy remembrance of then and us – you,
so alive and full of joy unending.

This night you wear frightful mask, unbending
in your ghastly ploy to entomb me, too.