Had forgotten,
Just how phobic it can be
in a tent.
Nothing comforting about it.
Laying on a hard mat
like a gurney execution.
It's pitch black inside.
Can't even see your
own hands. Campfire smoke
seeps in, filling the chamber
with gas.
Soon after the flashlight
flickers and dies.
Nothing left to do but
tackle sleep.
Minutes pass....then,
a scream just outside!
Feeling the Heat Release
of adrenaline. An owl,
resolution.
But the seeds are sown.
Senses now on high alert.
Perceiving everything outside
these nylon catacomb walls
audibly.
Forest drops it's litter.
Imagination steps down the trail
with every heartbeat.
River gushes a rhythmic branch
near the bank. But it sounds
like someone
getting out of the water.
Head emerging
faceless and dripping.
then, shoulders and arms;
a corpse levitating!
Footsteps at the edge.
Naw.... you look anyway.
Nothing discernible.
Shadows slant eyes
can't focus.
It's nothing,
lay back down.
My face
in the corner of the tent.
A powerful razor
bear claw could come through,
like butter. In my sleep
mauling my sweet Colegate breath.
Or worse yet -
A human predator,
could use my own
sharpened hatchet
that I unthinkingly
left out by the wood,
to cut the tent
and then my own weak
frail flesh!
More unrecognizable sounds....
What is that scurrying outside,
just inches from my head....
a giant scorpion?
Insomnia sets in
as I wake up every hour
on the half. Nightmares
plague my joy of camping.
Such as the one,
where my frantic paranoia -
causes me to brutally
murder my sleepside companion
in a fit of animalistic self-defense
