Curate, connect, and discover
To acknowledge the Monster is to say
It is here,
That it has been here all along;
It is to stand in the dark with a terrible thing
Hoping it does not devour you.
To be hopeful is to be terrified
Of anything otherwise;
It is to hold on
To withering threads of optimism
As the likelihood of the unfavourable
Gets the guillotine ready for your head.
To scream Monster is to say
Here stands a terrible thing
That scares me;
You cannot simply
Take the elephant out of the room
And throw it under the bus,
You know?
To be scared is to admit
You have something to be scared of
And something to be scared for.
To draw a monster and ask yourself
What makes one,
Is to ask yourself what you consider
Dreadful enough to be called inhuman.
To tell stories of your childhood
Is to say it is long gone;
It is to acknowledge
Childhood pushed you off the cliff
And ran away.
It is to say you have been
Free falling ever since,
Trying to grasp at things
That do not stay.
To have an inheritance
Is to say that
Everyone in the family is dead.
To scream Monster
Is to stand in the dark beside it
And say you know terrible well enough
To know what a Monster is.
To say you are here
Is to realize there was a time
When you were not,
That there will once again
Be a time
When you won't be here;
It is to say you don't know
What time is anymore.
To be alive
Is to be terrified
(All the time)
And hopeful,
Even if the guillotine
Is getting ready
For your very execution;
It is to turn the lights off
And sleep in the room
With the Monster
And pray like hell
It does not kill you.
- A.G.