Ghosts Poem by Rebekah Gamble

I feel a calm panic,
a sort of trapped fear,
driving particular small town streets
late at night.
No human footstep is heard,
no human heartbeat
pulses in the air,
no one forcibly takes breaths
tearing the captive air up inside them,
and throwing it back out again, depleted,
as only smoke
in the stiff, frosty miasma.
Yet I see figures
of people, of ghosts,
always large, dark men,
compsed of gruff grey
and stiff, boundless black.
Heavy figures,
ghosts turning corners
and roaming the streets.
I don't know
whether they are really there
or are just the mildew
left in my mind
from things that once were.
I am frequently told
that I need to get out of here.
Yet, I feel no emotion,
no fear of the shadows'
dire threat.
So I drive the streets slowly
and stop occasionally
to stand where it was possible
that I once stood,
alone on the streets
with my ghosts.