The Sound That Followed Me Home
By Topher Shields
The night was
thin—like a lie—
when I stepped back onto the road
I’d sworn never to touch again.
Gravel breathed beneath my tires,
the bushline holding its own breath,
as if it remembered
everything I left here.
Wind whispered a warning
through the gorse—
a rustle carrying my name,
too faint to trust—
while the moon hung low and watchful,
its pale eye tracking
the hesitation in my steps.
Then I heard it
again—that small, bruised
sound I’ve never outrun,
woven tight between ribs,
a question I refuse to speak aloud.
It rose from the dark
beside the fenceline,
where grass still leans sideways
after a struggle.
Nothing moved.
But the silence kept its
shape—sharp-edged,
breathing,
familiar—like
memory.
I didn’t call out.
Some truths don’t want witnesses.
So I carried that sound
back to the car—
that soft, breaking thing
only I can hear—
and when the engine caught,
headlights sliced the road open
just enough to show
no footsteps following.
Only mine.
Always
mine.
Topher Shields is a poet from Aotearoa New Zealand whose work traces the sacred fractures between silence, ritual, and inheritance. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, The Shore, The Bangalore Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Tangled Locks Journal, Hip Pocket Press, The Dewdrop, and the Rough Diamond Anthology.
