1.

‘Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the house
Came their screams, and I quaked
In my bed like a mouse.

An old threadbare blanket
Hid me from sight
It alone could sustain me
To last through the night.

Just one glimpse, just a fraction
Of fingers or head
Would bring forth the monsters
To drag me from bed.

I knew not their names,
Nor the form that they took,
No nursery rhyme claimed them,
Nor child’s picture book

Yet some older instinct
From ancestral caves
Compelled me to hide
And stay still as the grave.

I knew without reason
These rules for survival
As surely as I
Could divine their arrival.

A singular curse,
Just my burden to bear
As my parents could never sense
Anything there.

‘Twas my childish fancy,
They chose to believe,
That the ghouls came to claim me
On each Christmas Eve.