• one.
    wide eyes and heartbeat racing
    know fear and fear knows
    how her tenacious fingers spread
    etching lines into seedling faces
    and around their upsidedown smiles

    two.
    i don’t dare breathe in case
    the cobwebs laced across my throat
    snap sharp and let sinewy cotton wilt
    so i choke on spiders and all those broken words
    i haven’t yet learnt to say

    the bloodrush gives me away,
    crimson stain on snowy veil pulled across my eyes
    accentuated by the dark hollows
    of monsters’ caves and sepia moths
    that flutter frantically in aversion to the dark

    three.
    chainsaw smiles loom from the shadows
    that creep toward the end of the bed,
    macabre melting into the scent of night
    seething and bubbling under my skin
    pulsating like blood. thud. thud.

    and now the moonscorched midnight
    breathes monster-forms into darkness;
    they stretch clawed hands from under
    the lid of the toybox, escaping between
    prison bars of their cryptic key-turn existence

    horror clenches around my throat
    choking tearstained spiders back
    and strangling words before can they form
    whilst blood beats hot throbbing panic
    and all I can hear is
    three, two, one
    ready or not, here I come…