My five year old self sits on the toilet, door open so I can see the top flight of stairs inhabited by shadows from a skylight. There’s a closed door at the end of the twilight; escaping from the keyless lock is sunlight full of dust motes that float. I am torn between a monster in the plumbing that I know is coming and the unknown behind the door. I’ve never pulled the chain before, believing that the water’s roar would rouse the ghost in the room. In winter, the bathroom has an icy chill and the added terror of a paraffin heater, its overwhelming stink and the wavy thrill of heat warning the bogeyman to stay away. And then one day, the door is open, its secrets spilled: a broken chair, worn cushions, a battered suitcase full of old lady’s tattered underwear, pinafores and canvas shoes - remnants of the wizened ghost we’d visit every Sunday afternoon, shut up in a different kind of room - my great grandmother, locked in her head with her own ghosts, lost and demented. Kim M. Russell, 19th April 2023
Image by Sebastian Hermann on Unsplash
It’s Wednesday, the middle of the week, and the nineteenth day of NaPoWriMo. The optional prompt asks us to read Marlanda Dekine’s poem ‘My Grandma Told Stories or Cautionary Tales’, which draws on a common feature of childhood: monsters; ones under the bed or in the closet; odd local monsters that other kids swear roam the creek at night, or that parents say wait to steal away naughty children that don’t go to bed on time. Our challenge is to cast our minds back to our own childhoods and write poems about what scared or was used to scare us, and which still haunts us (if only a little bit) today. I revived and re-wrote an old poem about something that will always haunt me.
writing in north norfolk 
Oh my, Kim. Yes, I understand how this could be scary for a five year old. And sitting there, vulnerable like that. I wish to hold that little girl. Be well, dear one. Blessing you.
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Thank you Selma. The visits to the old Victorian asylum, which has since been demolished, were even more terrifying. It was the first time I saw a naked old lady.
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Oh my!
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You’ve captured your fright so well, Kim . 🙂
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Thank you Kitty!
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When we were children, everything can, scare and, frighten us, and, as we become adult, we become, a little more, fearless, thinking nothing can, destroy us, then, we start, fearing the inevitable, end, as we become, older, adults.
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So true.
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So powerful! The turn to dementia at the end was like a gut punch. Well done!
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Thank you Bryan.
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Nothing is as terrifying as a child’s imagination. Poignant ending about the great-grandmother.
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Thank you Romana. Looking back, I’m surprised that my grandmother put me through those visits, which were very scary as my great grandmother was in a Victorian asylum.
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Oh my goodness, that’s such a sad story…
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Toilets and locked doors – nothing scarier! Lovely poem
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Thank you kindly!
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