No Exit and No Return

*First published by Everyday Weirdness (everydayweirdness.com) on March 29, 2010.

No Exit and No Return

It sits along the turnpike
west of Youngstown—
but you'll never reach it that-a-way.

There is no exit—
no return.

It's just a field, abandoned,
and crumbling barn.
One bold farmer fought to have his day
but night consumed him.

Others learned
to leave it be as cursed land
where creatures dwell—
beasts that harvest anguish and dismay
sown from fertile dreams—
stolen, spurned
or lost, forgotten, left to rot
much like the barn.

The air is thick with death, decay
and deprivation.

Fires burned
and yet a certain stench remains—
uncommon smell
of things too dark for human eyes,
things one farmer tried to see.

He
should have turned
away before the voices
seeped inside
his head, inside his thoughts.

He prayed
too late and stayed too long.

Now
there is no exit, and
no return.