Do You Fear the Real Monster?

A Poem

Photo by Karl Edwards on Unsplash

some secrets are too powerful
to be kept behind locked doors —
or so goes the misery of being human

there’s a lock for every heart,
and we have to find the keys
that will gain us passage to each other

don’t fear the monster under the bed —
because there are worse things out there
than what congregates in the dark

telling stories by night gives us comfort,
that we might fall asleep to wonder
instead of sinking in a sea of despair

children are too young to know better —
their imaginations run wilder than wolves —
but we still delight in the way they spin tales

someday you might see more than meets the eye,
but we all cloak ourselves in facades, those costumes
that allow us to slip under regular observation

midnight, the witching hour, comes and goes —
but we’re still cradled in our creature comforts
that may dissipate in the generations to come