Like Blood From an Open Wound

The words spill out from time to time
Like blood from an open wound
Dark and thick against the backdrop
Of shallow conversation

There are terrors worse
Than those we face in the waking world
Horrors that haunt
The empty moments
The spaces between
The noise and the silence
When the pounding in our ears
And in the back of our heads
Recedes
And we are left alone
With our thoughts
The veil lifted
The façade shattered to reveal
Ourselves