IT TASTES LIKE FEAR

It all began when I left late from school,
I had taken a short cut and forgotten the golden rule.
Two minutes saved...but I didn't realize,
Tomorrow's news headlines...behind psychotic eyes.
Bushes rustle to my frightened hustle,
I had to get away.

As I walk I take an unfamiliar fork,
Frightened birds take flight and squawk.
Burrowing pupils seem to invade my space,
I could almost sense, I could almost taste.
Is this a stalker's unseen hiding place-?
Or will brambles and branches hinder the chase?

My heartbeat thrums and thrumbles in my head,
I'd rather get told off for lateness, than end up dead.
Us children absorb all the daily news,
But still live at risk-we're free to choose.
Am I getting further or nearer to my fate?
The excertion of scrambling, my teeth begin to grate.

As I fall someone stands over quite tall,
I try to shout out I tried to call.
Daily news reverberates around my mind,
Police and dogs trying to find.
A smile now gone but the eyes portray,
My final moments as my body lay.

Hot, rasping breath inches from my frightened face,
Grabbing hands tether the chase.
A well-aimed kick, the hardest I could muster,
A steel toecap embedded in his nut cluster.
The grip is released; he tumbles in a hunched mound,
Blubbering nonsense, a sorry, pathetic sound.

Grasping his genitals, his Achilles' heel,
I share no sympathy for the way he feels.
Nearby as he lay a knife glints back,
Picked up by the tip now sheathed in my pack.
Running away I leave his writhing plight,
His probing peepers lost in the twilight.

The search is well underway, but easier than we thought,
A safety lesson for us all is now taught.
The knife's evidence gave away his identity,
Too many suspects in such a big City.
Instead of forensic studies and fingerprint files,
The Knife's engraved with the name...James W.Miles.