Shukibaby

Warm dirt touches the bottom of my feet. I curl my toes into the earth as a warm summer breeze kisses my perspired skin. It is night, and I stand incandescent in darkness, washed in moonlight. My bare feet rest on a small deer trail beside a cornfield. I can hear the corn scratching and swaying to the windy ghost whispers of the night. I am sleepwalking again. I don’t know how I got out here. I understand my dreams brought me here. I can feel her presence. She is watching me again. She always watches me when I dreamwalk. As my blood fills with acidic adrenaline, I awake and crave my return journey home. She stands at the forest’s edge, and her bird-like eyes glow brightly in the dark. She stares at me with antediluvian fangs and primordial claws that could rip me apart. Yet she tilts her head in agog; ostensibly, she’s genetically designed to devour and digest me, yet she desires to understand me. I reach out to the corn and touch the thick husks as I turn around on the deer trail. The