| FALL 2002 |
flashquake Poetry |
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Your mother never sings you to sleep. She never hums lullabies, or tells you bedtime stories about princes and princesses, dragons in need of slaying, and happily ever after endings. And so you never drift off to sleep with visions of fairytale beauty playing in your head (like your schoolmates on their Ethan Allen beds). Your nights are not for dreaming. Your nights are for clutching the teddy bear with the left ear torn off and sewn back on again, the fuzz worn down, a grape juice stain down the front, and a burn from sitting on the radiator too long drying off. For holding him tight — and doing battle with the darkness you have been afraid of all your life. For worrying about the monsters in the closet, crouching there in wait under your Sunday clothes, with teeth sharpened on centuries of children whose mothers never sang them lullabies. Monsters who've grown long gray beards, and complain about the arthritis in their seventy-seven finger joints, and play bridge with the monsters cross-town on alternate Tuesdays. And although they would eat you with excellent manners, saying "pass the child, please" and "thank you", you do not fall asleep and wait for them to dine on you. Instead, you have a secret pile of rubber bands under the pillow, and you shoot them through the crack in the closet door where their eyes are gleaming. And you eat all your vegetables at dinner (even the green ones), and learn combat from comic books and horror movies and playground fights. And you can almost reach the light switch if you jump really hard. And one day, Very soon, You'll laugh when the other kids at school bring in their butterflies and music boxes for show and tell, As you finger the piece of monster hide in your pocket, and wait for the chance to show it off. "Bedtime Story" was published in In the Spirit of the Buffalo in 1996 and Penny-a-Liner in 1997.
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