Nightmares in Hugo

While searching for triggers
in an Iowa I’ve only read about,
my gaze finds a painted metal silo
above a ruined field.
A wooden ladder, laden with rot and splinters
is propped against a broken rusted opening near the top.
Barbed rungs catch and rip
the white flesh of soft hands,
but I climb to the hole.
Orange metal flakes break and flutter
to yellow ground as I enter,
and a spiral, cast iron catwalk
drops to blackness.
I descend, hear the sloshing
footsteps, the flailing movements.
A corpse walks and waits for the young
in a three foot puddle of murky
water, sloughed skin.
I dip one toe in cold wetness
dripping blood and tears,
a rotting hand finds my face
and fills my scream with cold fingers,
pulling me under,
with what I own.