**VHS Horror Night** *(poetic · creative · skurril)* **Verse 1** The tape clicks in like a dying heartbeat, grainy snow falling on a midnight screen. A girl in white walks backwards through the static, her smile is missing frames, her eyes are green. I press rewind and the room gets colder— the remote grows teeth, the sofa sighs. Tonight the VHS is breathing harder, and something soft is watching from the sides. **Refrain** Haunt me… Haunt me… 憑いて… 憑いて… Haunt me through the tracking lines, Haunt me till the picture dies. Haunt me… Haunt me… 憑いて… 憑いて… Stay between the snow and me until the morning never comes. **Verse 2** The tracking bar crawls like a wounded spider, a telephone rings inside the tape. A voice says “don’t look left” in seven languages, then laughs in Japanese and waits. I see my own face in the paused reflection, but the mouth is moving out of sync. The pause button bleeds a little red light— and the night decides to stay and drink. **Refrain** Haunt me… Haunt me… 憑いて… 憑いて… Haunt me through the tracking lines, Haunt me till the picture dies. Haunt me… Haunt me… 憑いて… 憑いて… Stay between the snow and me until the morning never comes. **Bridge** (quiet, almost spoken) Press play again. The heads are dirty. The ghosts prefer low quality. They like the way the colors bleed, they like the way I cannot leave. One more night. One more tape. One more soft and broken shape that walks out of the screen and into the dark where the VHS keeps beating like a second heart. **Final Refrain** Haunt me… Haunt me… 憑いて… 憑いて… Haunt me through the tracking lines, Haunt me till the picture dies. Haunt me… Haunt me… 憑いて… 憑いて… Stay between the snow and me… Haunt me… Haunt me… until the tape runs out of me.
