What Happens In The Dark
written by: Poppy Sindral
The first word was not ours.
I was not asleep
when it came –
the dark was
– a whole other organ.
It said a sound I could not carry into light.
A sound shaped like the breath before a confession.
Like a comet braking in atmosphere,
but inside my jaw.
Later, I tested my tongue against the syllable,
failed.
It is alive;
it wants only to be spoken in rooms where no one sees you.
I imagine this is how the ancients learned gods existed,
not from statues or thunder,
but from a private consonant
pressed against the skull’s door.
The governments send their officers.
The doctors send their charts.
My body answers with new rhythms:
heart like a bird caught in a chimney,
eyes that refuse the sun.
What won’t be blamed for it:
migraines,
low blood sugar,
loneliness,
the sound of your own blood in the ear.
What will:
everything else.
Once, in daylight, I opened my mouth
and tasted the shadow of it,
like iron and rain,
but the rest would not come.
When the second call comes,
I will not speak back.
I will let the dark speak first.
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