Walking, stepping, breathing dust
Mixed with bitter ash and just
Counting trees to keep my state of mind
I never believed the legends before
I do not doubt them anymore
How can one doubt the fact he nearly died?
I only wanted time alone
To leave what horrors lie at home
But the horrors I found are worse than man has seen
Its sunken eyes and protruding brow
Its concave nose and grin so foul
The creature, twisted, mangled, long, and lean
I walked out the door and to the woods
The air didn’t feel quite as it should
But I dismissed it as the autumn air
I should have realized it then
My oft trod path had not an end
I was amid an unending nightmare
I passed the same oak four more times
Before I came to realize
The dry and breathy groans right by my ear
My mind began racing on what to be done
Turn quickly or slowly, stay put, or just run
My heart was pounding. What the hell do I do?!
My mind cried “Run!” but my bones were still
My body was frozen against my will
I tried to scream; my lungs not one breath drew
Before my eyes the beast appeared
Again I tried to scream in fear
The beast groaned “Hush, it’s time for you to sleep”
My body suddenly hit the ground
I was in control, but not quite sound
Every muscle felt incredibly weak
I barely stood up on my feet
I knew then that I could not sleep
I had to stay awake to keep my life
I have been walking ever since
It’s been years since the experience
I’m not sure if I’m even still alive
So now, before you enter these woods
I’d turn around now if I could
My story’s not one you should dare forget
The beast is one of misdirection
A puppet master of misconception
He’ll contort your psyche like his marionette
I meant to post this some time in October for Spooky Season, but I honestly just kept forgetting to find the time to arrange this post and actually share it.
The idea of writing a narrative poem taking place in the woods was inspired by Hozier’s song “In the Woods Somewhere.” I was heavily inspired by the animated miniseries “Over the Garden Wall” for both its themes and the rhyme scheme presented in a song within the show (“The Beast Is Out There”). After I re-read this poem recently, I noticed a lot more ways than I intended where I drew from “Over the Garden Wall.” It’s funny how even now, I’M still finding new things in my poems haha.
I wrote this poem for my 10th grade English class when we were on the unit of fear. If I’m being honest, this is one of my favorite poems of mine. For the assignment, we had to create some form of media to invoke fear and present it to the class. I’m quite proud to say that I was the only one in my class who wrote a poem. And if I may put my humility aside for a moment, I would say that it was the best presentation in the class, even though I was incredibly nervous before and while reading it. After I read the poem, the whole class gave me a round of applause. It wasn’t the usual obligatory post-presentation applause, but a real, genuine one. (I’m really not trying to make this sound like one of those fake “and everybody clapped” posts haha.) It felt really nice.
Funnily enough, I wrote about 60% of this poem the night before it was due. Even though I enjoyed the assignment, I just kept procrastinating because I was always trying to set a large amount of time aside to work on the poem, and I just couldn’t. (I was a pretty busy student at the time.) I remember staying up until around 2am working on it and even finishing it up on the bus to school.
Despite all of that, I really do consider this one of my proudest works. And even though Spooky Season is over, I hope you still enjoy it.
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