Demon

 They lie under the surface, 

 seeds that are tiny and round, 

with corners that jut out and anchor in place, while rubbing 

and scraping tiny lines on each surface.

Slide your foot across the floor and you'll feel their grinding.

Push hard, and they'll cut into the corklike tissue of your foot, 

not quite glass, not quite broken.

And where they lodge, there they'll grow. 

Flush as many of them out as will flow through the corridors of your thoughts. 

Maybe you'll succeed in living a good clean life.

You could perhaps pretend that they weren't there

for a good long while. 

But they'll be sending out their threadlike fibers, 

grabbing and pulling for fertile pockets

kneading tenderly at the parts of your being that pass unnoticed, 

ever growing, living, breathless.