If we make our monsters live all by themselves,
they'll find a way to be under our skin again.

After all our monsters
are all ours to feed.

I woke up in the middle of night, last night, to an unfamiliar noise. It was a vibrating frequency coming from the floor underneath of me. I live in the third floor unit of my building which means there's second and first floor units. The noise is coming from the people underneath of me, probably. I heard it again and I was unsure of the location. Then I heard it a third time and this time it sounded like it was coming from my front door. I heard the **** make a noise. The sound of someone turning your locked doorknob or vending touching it in the middle of the night is not okay. I felt the adrenaline rush to all the muscles in my body and for a moment I was ready. I was still. I listened. My instinctual fighting abilities have evolved to this moment even though I have never been in a physical fight with anything except my boyfriends dog... After so many minutes, I began thinking about that very specific door **** noise and then trying to figure out what that vibrating rumble was. In my head I compared it to the Babadook which is a movie I had just watched recently. Even though still terrified hiding under the blankets, I found this moment comical. This would be the moment as a child when I would run into my parents bedroom night after night telling them about my nightmare and then continue sleeping in between them. In this moment I decided to let my mind wonder and listen for the first time in a long time. Through meditation I have learned to shut the unproductive doors in my mind. As I listened all I heard was the rushing vehicles on rt 76 across the river. The sounds created it's own river. I heard the breaks of the tracker trailers rumbling down the freeway to fade into the noise of the night.  I heard nothing. I heard a car drive by on my street. It hit a *** whole. For awhile the noises became so repetitive that it became mundane and my thoughts started to creep in and I let them. Then I heard an emergency vehicle. My ears perked up as I listened to the sirens bounce off the buildings. I could visualize the architectural layout of each block the ambulance went down or approached. My mind had made a fuzzy map of my neighborhood. I eventually heard the sound of my alarm reminding me to get out of bed.

Bright heat shelters me,
Absorbing doubt into a glowing orb.
A cocoon,
wrapping me up in silky denial
And
offering the freedom to pretend.

Crisp air weaves it’s way between my bones,
Shedding burs
into every notch.
The prickle in my neck taps Morse into the skull,
The truth that looms like Babadook:
     
      The excavator of ideas
       is a soulless body
       that only dreams
      of digging the earth.

Suspended in-security,
turning thoughts to stone.
The chisel makes its mark

My hands are tied, the artist is fear.

i'm smarter than i look
i like to read books
sometimes i cook
i've never slept in a nook
my family's a bunch of crooks
my poems will leave you shook
AP World History is the longest exam i've ever took
i don't know how to tie on a fish hook
i really didn't understand the babadook
never had a friend named brook
or brooke
i think there is a kind of fish called a snook
they call me sierra because the name shtook

I survived things I thought were worth fighting for.
I survived worse things, so now I'm fighting forward.
I survived cursed things, that frightened more.
I survived things I fought but been slighted for.
I survived having to make ends meet.
I survived splashing cause the pool was more than 10 ft.
I survived a thrashing & jabbing the ****** concrete.
I survived the teeth gnashing cause we ain't have nothing to eat.
I survived about at least 4 foreclosures.
I survived ignoring doubt, just for closure.
I survived things that ended in my own exposure.
I survived enduring drought just for full disclosure.
I survived being back-stabbed and betrayed by my beloved.
I survived being flayed, filleted and flummoxed.
I survived being led to the lake by the lazy lummox.
I survived both blades and flames in my stomach.
I survived dreams where I was falling.
I survived falling forward on the path of my calling.
I survived calling it quits on the plans of my offing.
I survived apples with poisoned pits , that were offered.
I survived having to spare shekels and hide.
I survived my very own version of Jekyll and Hyde.
I survived diluted deities, Ms. Dee Dee and diabetes.
I survived debbie downers and debutantes.
I survived double doubters and deadly taunts.
I survived some double crossings - dealing haunts,
I survived tempted tantrums and tethered thoughts.
I survived the boondocks and the tricks of the babadook.
I survived bad trips and the trips that papa took.
I survived self destruction of the 3rd degree.
I survived self construction with less debris....