Don't I Know You From Somewhere?

By Bruce McRae

You don't remember me.

I was that spider you watched

walking across a ceiling.

I was that horsefly

in a brothel your grandfather visited

during the last great war.

An accident waiting to happen,

I happened.

I'm your invisible friend

from when you were five years old.

That's me in the photograph

in your uncle Harry's living-room.

You were stood in a field

and saw me passing on a train.

Our shadows once touched.

I sat at the back of our classroom.

You were Buddha and I wiped your brow.

You once gave me half your sandwich.

You sold me a gun and a gramme of death.

That ant you tortured gleefully,

that was me, I didn't forget,

the scales to be balanced in my favour.

You don't remember me,

but we played on the same team together.

I was a dog, your favourite pet.

You wept when you left me.

You asked me for a cigarette,

for a match, for a dollar.

I was that robin that you murdered.

Of all the fears you ever feared,

I was that monster.