Poetry is a beautiful thing. I read it. I write it. I hear it. I recite it. But when rhythm and rhyme are used in a negative message, poetry chills me to the bone. As a child I could not hear Rock-a-Bye Baby without cringing. And when I had a child, I didn’t sing or read him nursery rhymes. Three Blind Mice; Wee Willie Winkie; Diddle, Diddle Dumpling, even Humpty Dumpty–all were off limits. He heard them from others, on television, and in books, but not from me. It was, and is, too frightening. And the more repetition I hear, the more trapped I feel. I feel physically and emotionally restrained, helpless, and horrified. All I can do is hold on until it passes, until the poetry stops, then deal with the cold sweat that sometimes results. It is one of my favorite things, poetry, working against me in a cruel twist of rhyming, rhythmic fate.

Nature’s poetry
twisted and mangled in death
is this beauty too?

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For NaPoWriMo day 17, a Haibun for Toni’s “fear” prompt at
dVerse.