Monsters

Childhood monsters 

image source

Can be vanquished

With a flashlight

A magic wand

Another glass of water

Some monsters are appeased

With rituals

No toes sticking out of the covers

And it won't nibble them off

Flush the toilet,count to ten, and run back to bed

It can't get you until eleven

Even the ones who dwell under the bed

Or in the closet

And have pointy teeth and yellow eyes

Won't cross the threshold

Of a parent's bedroom

Even they follow the rules

Then one day you overhear

A hushed conversation

While playing with Legos

Or coloring with your new crayons

You hear the word "monster"

And the grown-ups faces don't look quite right

One day a neighbor girl

Teases you and says 

"Better not go outside by yourself-you'll get raped."

And you ask your mother what that means

And then you wish you hadn't 

But you can't take it back now

It's 1974

The grown-ups have that look again

And you ask who Adam Walsh is anyway?

Then you learn

That the monsters are real

And they don't play by the rules now.

submitted for the Thursday Think Tank, #46, Monsters at Poets United