Fear me

If I come knocking on your door at two in the morning, fear me. If you open the door and the wind is howling down your driveway and rushing damp autumn leaves over your doorstep, fear me. If the streetlamps happen to have gone out (because it’s two in the morning and no one in their right mind would be out in this weather even if it wasn’t two in the morning) and the iron gate at the bottom of your path is swinging open and shut, fear me. If you are startled by the milk bottles which have fallen off your doorstep and are now rattling away down the your driveway and over the drain cover and smash into the wall and by the roar of the wind scattering the fragments of glass like gravel in a fish tank, fear me.
If you hear a cackle coming from one end of the street which is instantly echoed at the other end, followed by the banshee-like screeching of owls in the oak trees, whose branches batter and tap on the side of the house in the storm, break loose a roof tile and send it clattering over the porch roof, fear me.
If you sense that there is a presence in your house, that it slipped through whilst you were distracted by the storm knocking on your door at two in the morning, that it knows where you are but it is not mutual; that this inner presence will snatch everything that is dear to you, including your love, so fear me.
You can hide your head under the pillows and pretend it’s not happening but you will still fear me. You will still for fear me when I’m thirty and sober. Next time, leaave the keys under the mat.