Boogeyman

Flick the lights off and wander to bed,

using caution in every step.

For that chair with a shirt on it is now a creature of extreme horror.

Do not walk to bed but instead

leap from a safe distance.

A safe distance from the bottom,

the door of another world.

Fear that a source of known horror might reach out,

trying to pull you in.

The leap is successful, with a loud squeak as the bed rearranges

itself from the force of weight.

Though that is only the scientific reason why it squeaks,

few know the real reason.

Him…

He is trying to escape.

Though time eludes him by a clock, sun, or moon,

he knows from the leap.

The leap is a constant timer.

He knows when its time to start work.

For he lays in dormant, then awakens.

Each light in the house turns off.

One after the other.

Getting later and darker.

All around the room the toys of day

become horrific objects of shadows

bringing to life the master of them,

calling him out from his home and world underneath the very thing thought

safe by so many children.

Pulling the sheets over your head for protection,

for whatever the horror, the pain, the fear

all vanish from this act.

From this barrier of cloth sown together by machines,

however,

machines know not how to protect children from evil and fear.

This sheet was not sown by machines.

For this barrier was home made, made by your own mother.

This shield is the strongest, filled with love and hope.

It will never falter.

Though through the sheet you can see the shadows dancing on the walls,

conspiring to break through, to crumble the cloth.

They gather around forming a circle of darkness,

blocking out the little light from the small nightlight plugged into the wall.

Nowhere to run or hide, it is the time to face the fear

that has never been faced before, that has always been hidden from.

As fast as the protective cloth was up, it is gone,

in its wake revealing a figure in the doorway.

The light comes on, its mother.

Silent yet to only your ears, screams of fear,

the sound must have travel to other sleeping ears.

Now the need for the sheet is gone, now the protection and loving

care is in the doorway to chase the Boogeyman away.