by Bre Lillie

Step One: Close your eyes.
When it climbs on your face like a spider
monkey /
and tries to pry your eyelids open
remember this isn’t a dream, and it is.

Step Two: Cover your ears and pray.
The silence will become less deafening
with practice. /
Try not to listen too closely to its breathing .

Step Three: Don’t stare
at the claw marks on the wall.

Refer to step one.

Step Four: The footsteps
you hear creeping up behind you
are only heartbeats.

 

Bre Lillie is originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, where she lives with a spoiled American Bully named Ellie Mae and picks wild blackberries every summer. She works in Human Resources and Safety for a manufacturing plant in the nearby city of Concord. Beginning in the fall of 2018, she will be an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.