JULY P.E.O.D. MEMOIR CHAPBOOK CHALLENGE – JULY 13: SCARIEST MOMENT

/ Poetic Bloomings

What was the scariest thing (moment) you had encountered in your life? Poem your story, give us a chill!

 

Alternatively, write about something that is scary. Maybe a phobia someone may have, or a movie that had you off the edge of your seat. I’m afraid of heights. That’s scary to me. So is struggling with a writer’s bottleneck. Write something and don’t be scared. We don’t bite… much!

46 thoughts on “JULY P.E.O.D. MEMOIR CHAPBOOK CHALLENGE – JULY 13: SCARIEST MOMENT”

  1. UNDER THE PORCH, UNDER THE FLOOR, by Walter I Wojtanik

    Dark and dusty, cobwebbed and musty. A space I used to go to for escape. A flashlight and a bundle of comic books were all this little nook needed. I would read my adventures, sequestered in this hidey-hole. I had control. No one else ventured there. My siblings found it very scary, but to me it was sanctuary.

    Every young boy needs
    a place that is all his own.
    Private thoughts to keep.

    I had gotten older. And asthmatic. And a bit rounder. I found that under the house in the crawlspace was dark and dusty, cobwebbed and musty. A space that would turn my face blue. The trusty flashlight in tow, I would forego all reading material. It was too real a fear. No one in his right mind would venture here. A mistake to try and slide under a floor beam. It seems I got myself quite stuck. I found it very scary, nary a sanctuary or safe place. A space just tight enough to squeeze and make me wheeze. Breathing became a chore. I resign myself, “No more!”

    Every old man needs
    to stay out of such places.
    Now his heart races.

  2. Saturday Nights

    When I was just a little girl,
    I’d whimper in my room.
    I’d plug my ears, hold back the tears,
    And fight the dread of doom.

    With covers pulled up to my eyes,
    I’d suffocate my scream.
    What once-a-week would make me freak?
    The Perry Mason theme!

    © Marie Elena Good, 2019

    I was SUCH a wimp. Still am! 😀

  3. Mm, I wrote about fear (together with a prompt to write about a fan and about temptation). I may come back t o my scariest moment. Until then, this is w hat I have:

    2 Timothy 1:6-7

    Fear stalks me still,
    blowing cold upon my soul’s fire,
    tempting me to retreat into my tent.
    But God gave me a gift, a greater-than-gift,
    a “look-Mikey-I-made-it” meal of mercy and might.
    Fan the fire’s flame, fight the fear.
    Fan until fear’s flown outside,
    shifting places with the power of prayer,
    a love for others, and self-control.

  4. .
    .
    .

    Yesterday, Today and Maybe Tomorrow

    That day long ago when
    for a little while, I died,
    thought I was going home,
    no sadness, no more fear,
    no clinging to what’s here.
    Day and night,
    the bombs had cast their light,
    yet from tunnel bright
    a chiming bell,
    not of hell,
    just a call to
    the work undone.

    That year I’d gone to war,
    all thrumming energy,
    rising above the cacophony,
    struggling beneath the fear,
    wishing mightily to be invisible,
    knowing I had put myself there,
    all the elements of ego
    so visible to God,
    if not to me.

    Those long months in
    hospital, reflecting, thinking that
    some warriors fear nothing,
    but this does not
    make them strong.
    It simply makes them,
    I think,
    too foolish to be afraid.
    Now, when I consider
    bravery, and fear,
    I see the absence of one does
    not define the other.

    Today, I have declared freedom
    from fear and darkness.
    Life is always present.
    Grief has had its time,
    in all its untidy dress,
    complicated and deep,
    feeling a lot like fear.
    Now, there is
    less force, more flow,
    less stress, more ease,
    less fear, more Grace.

  5. Wolf Creek Pass

    One holiday season, I was driving over Wolf Creek Pass
    headed to Grandma’s in Wyoming in my 1983 Chevy Caprice
    with my two small kids in the back.
    An article in the local paper declared Wolf Creek Pass
    the most dangerous pass in Colorado,
    but that’s arguable compared to Red Mountain Pass.

    Wolf Creek was the subject of C. W. McCall’s 1975 song
    that described it as “37 miles o’ hell.”
    That wouldn’t be my description exactly,
    because I’ve driven over it many times.
    Regardless, Wolf Creek Pass has many hairpin turns,
    runaway truck ramps and cliffs with heart-stopping drop-offs.

    More often than not, it’s snowing as it was that day.
    My motto for driving that old car up the pass was,
    “Going forward is all that matters!”
    As we crept up the side of the mountain in dreary skies,
    falling snow, and slush that built up on the tires,
    we were almost to the summit when the radiator hose blew.

    I gingerly backed up toward a wide spot
    of the roadside next to an unrailed drop off.
    I planned to coast back down to the base
    of the mountain where I had seen a business
    and hoped to use their phone.
    Looking back behind me I saw sky.

    As I backed up, the car started sliding toward the cliff.
    I thought, with terror, that the kids would go over first.
    My heart hammered. I don’t think the kids realized
    what was happening. The car stopped.
    I breathed again. It was only two or three seconds,
    but it was the scariest two or three seconds of my life.

    I coasted down the mountain and used the phone as planned.
    I got the car repaired and returned home.
    The next day, we went the long way around through Utah.

  6. THE GAPPER STRIKES

    I once went to dentist named Kress
    who would cause a great deal of distress:
    he could yank teeth as fast
    as a microburst blast
    and was known as the Molar Express.

  7. Even though there are about 365 references to not being afraid or not living in fear in the Bible (one for each day of the year), we still ignore that advice quite often, it seems. But just like most other things in the Bible, our human nature is to doubt.

    Fears

    I used to think under the bed
    Something was waiting and not quite dead
    I’d wrap up tight and say my prayers
    And hope whatever would stay under there
    I outgrew that fear
    Don’t remember the year

    When very young mom would get stuck
    Behind those massive trailer trucks
    I’d scream if she attempted to pass
    I thought it would fall and we’d get smashed
    I outgrew that fear
    Don’t remember the year

    For many years nothing scared me
    Until I joined the military
    That first late night getting off the bus
    That T.I. scared the crap out of us
    I outgrew that fear
    And I remember that year

    My fear list is really quite small
    Who’s not scared of snakes after all
    Tall buildings cause me anxiety
    And closed in places really bother me
    I’ll not outgrow those fears
    They’ve been with me for far too many years

  8. SNEAKY SNAKES

    Sneaky snakey
    black rubber hose
    laying in the summer sun.
    It slipped away
    into the climbing rose
    when my foot
    set hard upon it.

  9. In My Sister’s Closet

    My sister and brother-in-law’s
    first apartment was a small,
    adorable place. I was bunking
    in for awhile, but we had
    our schedules neatly worked out.

    Night begins. Dinner is over,
    dishes done. My sister and I
    are having a conversation, when
    we realize my brother-in-law
    has vanished. Not around,
    no sound echoing from any
    room. We look, we call
    his name. Nothing. Strange
    because we did not hear
    an outside door close. I head
    down the narrow hallway.
    BOO! My brother-in-law jumps
    out of a closet yelling. Did
    not need the ‘boo’ to feel
    my heart pound, my mouth
    scream. It was a one-time
    only moment.

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