Who Goes There?

There’s something else here
I can feel, but cannot see.
Some warmth or kindness;
It reaches for me
With phantom hands
And I grab at the ether
To steady my descent
But plunge beneath for
Lack of tactile manifestation,
The figure you turn to see in flight
Vanishing immaterial:
A benevolent gaslight.
But the tiny patter of raindrops
Leaves ripples in the peripheral
Of my reality, of my intuition,
Their micro-explosions visceral
Like an echo that returns changed,
Resonating in the deep.
They tap lullabies on my window pane
While in the cold I sleep.
This spectre is better than I
At hide and seek;
Better, by far, in the hide.
Is it reluctance? Resistance?
Does the kindness flow
From perfunctory obligation,
Or does it stay in shadow
To feel philanthropic?
Perhaps it may rightly believe
I am already a lost cause.
Virtue and vice both deceive.

Maybe it’s because the kindness
Knows when it extends,
Connection requires response,
And I have nothing to expend

That I haven’t already spent.
I have nothing else to give,

And everything costs something.