Poem (horror theme): The hitch-hiker

 

Someone asked me if I have any horror poems, so I was just sorting through old poems. This one is an old one, from Mind-spinning Rainbows, published in 2015. It's about a man on the highway and he's about to pick up a hitch-hiker, but there's a full moon and she isn't what she seems. 

The hitch-hiker
 
No time like the present,
she said,
 
wished yesterday revolved,
wishing upon the thing
as the oil spilled forth
dark and rich,
congealing in her hands
like sin.
 
The time was for the taking,
the day eaten by the night.
A still, arched moon
breathed out
against the howling wind,
like a curse.
 
She stood guard over it,
her own body
and the soul caged –
its remnants –
as the car turned,
like a hearse.
 
“Are you going my way?”
she asked the profile,
flicking a smile,
opening her hands,
clean, so bare,
like innocence.
 
Twisted is the way
I am,
she said
not so long ago
to the last passer-by,
like a game.
 
This one has a crazy air,
a dark wildness,
flicks back his hair,
spits in the dirt,
curses this old life,
like a reject.
 
In her hands she carries it
all, despairing,
slipping into the car
too close to him,
offering a smile
like a child.
 
But the demon inside her
rages hot and cold,
eager to howl,
translucent as this moon.
In a moment she’ll snap
like hell itself.
 
No time like the present,
she said.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, Mind-spinning Rainbows