Blue Tattoo

Some stories frighten me.

Not gruesome stories – those are fine.

It’s stories of the unknown.

Tales of darkness and things

With ragged teeth are fine.

It’s all real.

Haunted houses and twisted trees

Twisted limbs

Are fine.

It’s all too real.

It’s when something is lost –

Someone is stolen –

Something is unexplained.

When the laughing carnival dances back away

Into the mist

And noone knows why

She died

When  it’s one phrase that sticks

In the mind

With razor sharpness:

“I saw them smile”

“It was his dying wish”

“You swore on a dead cat”

When I remember that I owe the wrongness –

Everyone does –

For sparing my life…

I shiver for one night, maybe.

Then I make a dark blue blanket in my mind

To cover that last shining evil memory

While I forge my sword.

And then the light comes ripping through, carving the blue to shreds.

In that awful moment is when heroes are born.

“My sword protects me.

My shield is stronger than your glowing eyes.”

Of course… swords don’t last forever.

So when they ask me

Whether horror stories bother me,

I say, “Nope – I can deal with those.”

But still I look off into the blue horizon,

Remembering,

And say very quietly,

“Some stories frighten me.”