A poem, written today, Nov. 21, 2009

You were smaller then.
You did not know such things,
nor did you think to ask of them.
They simply were not.


But they crept in,
slowly, insinuating themselves
into the dark corners.


One day you turned too quickly,
and they stared you in the face.
You gasped, grasped for stability.
They would not leave.
Once seen, a thing cannot be unseen.
Once known, a thing cannot be unknown.


Now you knew where they were.
You tried to avoid the dark corners.
You took cautious steps.  You did not run.
Smiles became measured, laughter checked.
A too-loud sob could awaken them.


The colors on the trees never seemed as bright as they did that last autumn of childhood and you have wished every day since then that time would stop insisting its way forward so that you could reverse your step and unsee and in unseeing, un-know, but it cannot be done and so instead you walk through the streets with your head down and your eyes lowered for fear of what you may see.


All the while, they sit in the dark corners,
silently crying.
Were they so hideous, that you should fear them?