The Cold Light Of Day

The cold light of day
In
Sid
U
Ous
Like gently touching your wet eyeball in the pitch black, as you can't tell whether your eyes are open or closed
And a scoop of stomach guts
Thrust down with a meat tenderiser
And regurgitated back to the ribbit in your throat

Peeling your eyes open
Chilled
All is usual
Dis
Con
Cert
Ing
Hollow suddenness
The flash of their death
The realisation
The dreaded gut wrenching fear darkly brewing up through your bubbling cauldron and trickling down your neck
The senses awakened

And a kiss
Stolen from your lips
Am
Big
U
Ous
Ly
Skipped a beat, stabbed the white knuckles and stomped the spit dripping from your brow
Tenderly weeping
Punched in the guts
Each breath heavy and heavier until you've drowned
Entering the treacle of darkness luring behind the curtains

And lungs
Burst alveoli
Dripping so sweetly sick
Mock
Ing
Ly
Disjointing
Never ending groaning again
Groaning and groaning
Rocking and falling into the
Into the wretched pool
Clinging
Strangling your neck

But you
It dawns
Dis
Gust
Ing
Ly
Gulping the sudden slap
Freshly woken
Senses toking
Flesh crawling away
Eating yourself enveloped and wanting to stomp the fire out
With your bare feet

Ever tried opening your eyes when the lids are sewn together?
Lights flickering against
Shadows
En
Gulf
Ing
Nausea is too keenly apparent
When gut wrenches thrown up and spitting up blood into your cupped hands
Eyes stinging

In the cold light of day
It all seemed so
Rid
Ic
U
Lous

Bones and blood and corns and mud.

I went back. Because I had to. I had to see. I thought that I would forget all about you. I thought I'd forget all the little details. But they're as vivid as ever. 

Battlegrounds.

Bones and blood and corns and mud. 

Yet I remember the lavish charm you withheld. 

Yet the sight is still tainted. Twisted love. Snapped with fury. Rages and tsunamis. Will you never not hold me?

You're.... just... gone. 

Your cloak and daggers. Your warmth and anger. Your charm and swagger. 

Your whispers, your tickles, your slurps and kisses.

But I'll never forget those autumn days, with the wind and the smoke filled haze, with your long and green tendrils and your longing gaze, with your arms outstretched making me ok.

But...I'll always remember deep in my heart, the claustrophobic panic, giving me a start. I'll always remember that hold on me, the swaying, the playing, the teasing, the strain.

And for that I'm grateful you're feeding the animals, the bristling beasts, the remnants, those poor godawful rodents. 

I'm grateful because you have no hold and next autumn, I tell you I'll be back bigger than bold. I'll be flying circles round you and I'll sway and we'll play and we'll stumble and trip, together we may. And you'll slurp me up all over again, yet I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid and at the end of the day, you're just corn in a cornfield and what else but to say, just you wait, I'll have my day, I'll tower, I'll climb and you'll be afraid, of the day you were left in this lonely place with no one there, just holding your breath, sitting out, waiting for the seasons of change and your stalks all snapped and your bristles splayed, your days all spent, with your bones and blood and corns and mud. 

And I told you, didn't I tell you, I was just about to blossom and fly... because without you I'm as high as a kite.

All photography by Martha Moopette