My Friend Beezlebub

My friend Beezlebub
plays games with me
on rainy days.

There’s a lot of things for us to do,
he says,
even when the sun is gone
- Especially when the sun is gone
and the darkness comes
to hide us.

Hide and seek. We play.

I find him in the coal scuttle,
the electricity cupboard,
the biscuit tin, the fire on the gas ring.

Caught you, he says
which is the wrong way round
‘cause I found him.

We run up and down the stairs,
with the old cricket bat
and Dad’s motorbike hard-hat.
We scream and shout and run
- round and round and round
we trap spiders, we catch flies,
Beezlebub looks at me
and smiles.

‘Stop messing around.
Go watch TV.’
But I’m playing
with my friend.
‘I don’t see anyone,
where is he then?’
I point. He’s right there.

His eyes are black, and his hair is red
- not ginger – red,
I try to explain to my mum
about my best friend Beezlebub.

‘No more pretend games,’ she says.

But I don’t pretend,
he just is.
My friend Beezlebub actually lives.
He still whispers to me
when I’m trying to sleep.