After dark

 

Is it that skin prickling primal fear

you feel when you walk near?

Or the stomach churning sounds you hear?

Pulling at your guts, tying them up,

cutting the blood supply off,

tensing muscles you have never used.

All you know is that its deep inside you.

Gnawing at your core.

You know there is something

deeply unsettling, something rotten,

some evil dwelling

somewhere in the woods for sure.

 

In daylight its fine, the sunlight 

dances through the treeline.

You feel the damp squash,

as your feet squish 

through the undergrowth moss.

The way the paths lead off

somewhere vibrant, bright, exciting

and new,

but it’s not threatening,

there is nothing at all to fear.

Just you and the delicate

woodland scent in the air.

I mean, they make

air fresheners smell like this.

They wouldn’t make

murder lake or deathly hallow

scented glade plugins.

 

But then the night falls in

and lighting runs out.

The darkness paints everything

A little more frightening

like a shadow over the land,

and there is no one here

to hold your hand.

So, whose hands is that in yours?

As you feel cold fingers (claws)

running wet across your wrist,

digging deep into your pores.

 

In these woods there are ghosts,

howling through their bleak existence.

Their eerie presence

sends shivers

through every atom.

Something unnatural in the gloom,

in the way the branches

always seem to crack

somewhere behind you.

Circling you.

Creeping up on you.

But when you look back

it’s exactly the same view

you’ve seen since you

entered this maze of the moon.

 

The way the grotesque limbs reach out,

fingers enticing you in,

like crooked fingers beckoning

leading you deeper within.

Taking you further

than you've ever been.

Now everywhere looks the same,

clawing arms reach out to grab

a sliver of your brain, gripping your wrists

and stretching you tight

in a crucifix pose

impaled against the moonlight.

as a warning to anyone

stupid enough to come near

When the day gives way to night.

 

 

Thanks for reading
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Peace, Love & Poetry
Kyle

 

All work copyright - Kyle Coare  

Graveyard of dead emotion

 

This empty page sits silent.

Words timidly circle

unasked questions,

but avoid unmasking themselves,

or announcing their presence

by placing a footprint

in the snow white covering.

Instead, they bounce around my head.

Do I blurt them out?

Let them drizzle onto the page?

Or do I contain them within

like a bird in a cage?

 

Would those words hurt

If I let them out? Would they cut

or cause doubt to appear?

Would their footprints leave

and never reappear?

Or would they

bring forth the reaper

to end my suffering here?

I only want to share

my heart with you.

but my heart is broken and frozen

from too much abuse

that it is scared it may become

snowdrops over the page.

Making the page unfit for use.

 

So, the empty page sits

like a graveyard

of dead emotion,

paper thin membrane of

soil drowned under tears

I've flooded from my eyes.

Buried under layers of smiles

and miles of positive travels.

A paper trail

oversaturated with memories

that my invisible ink

won’t allow to appear,

and my hopes become fears

when I see them written,

so, the page stays clear.

Built of imperfections

 

I am built of imperfections,

emotional breakdowns,

mental miscalculations.

Elemental tribal sounds

played with the passion

of a burning supernova.

I am built of trauma,

a dash of theatre and drama,

the flourish of a newborn star.

I am a road map of scars.

Each one leading to a heart

that has been wrung dry,

but each day looks to the sky

as a teardrop flower petal

falls from my eye

and I give thanks to

the moon and stars that shine.

 

In my words there is truth.

There is honesty.

Emotion ripped free

and poured out

for all to see.

And there is fiction

in the strands of reality,

between the two 

I don’t draw a distinction

for the stories are born

from lived experience.

Inspiration given

a slightly new existence.

 

There is hurt in the love.

There are bruises

amongst the roses.

There is horror clinging

like vines to the fairytale towers

that I’ve climbed.

There are seas that sail

over concrete cities.

There are isles and fields.

But in them all is me.

Pieces of my history,

memories I’ve uncovered.

Places I’ve breathed,

people I’ve loved

and the lives I've lived,

grown from tiny seeds.

 

There is truth and there is fiction.

There is play with subtle introspection.

The things I see, the people I meet,

those things on TV, the news in print.

The things of which I think

and the things that think of me.

It’s all a twisted tangle of threads.

A ball of old yarn, told to make sense

if you thread the pieces together again.

I hold so many worlds in my head,

some live beside me,

some inside that only I can see,

but if you come on this ride with me

I'll shed every strand

and lay them out for you to see.