I used to live in a little house with big back yard in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Mum swears it was haunted. I swear it had faulty wiring. The only time I thought there might generally something evil about that house was when I was home alone one night in my late teens, reading a book in bed. My best explanation is that I had an unprovoked, completely random panic attack. Here's a crap little poem I wrote about it for the spooky season. (Excluding the part where I called my best friend in tears and told her if I tried to cross the living room I would die). The brain is a funny thing. So was that house.
Panic
It was sometime in the Winter,
alone in urban hinterland
I felt my focus splinter
from the book upon my lap.
My lamp the only light stay,
fear crept through me where I lay
looking out towards my doorway
and stared into pitch dark black.
Though no sound I had heard creaking,
and no light I had seen peeking,
and no wind I had felt leaking
through a wall or window crack,
I had a sudden terror fill me.
Head to toe I felt it chill me
Had my novel merely thrilled me?
Or was there something looking back?
Edging out of safety’s bed,
I tried my best to clear my head
and reassure myself instead
that it was sanity I lacked.
Beyond my room was dark and dead,
the silence fueling inner dread.
So unnatural the quiet fed
my notion of some evil tack.
I reached out to flip the light switch
to illuminate a path which
to escape my fever fear pitch
but nothing flickered in the black.
In darkness there I stood
and in my mind I knew I would
perish if I stayed, but could
I make it out the back?
In tears, I could not breathe
as something un-perceived
wielding power not conceived
held me steadfast in my tracks.
It felt like hours there I stayed
and I shook but never strayed.
My back flat to wall I laid
as I screamed, and my voice cracked.
But no one heard me crying,
or perhaps they thought me lying
That some evil force was vying
for my soul in some attack
I could started there to drown,
dread had weighed my body down
but if I crossed the darkened ground
there would be no coming back.
Panic finally overtook me.
No longer paralyzed, it shook me
back to life, a second took me
and I sprinted through the black.
As I burst outside my mind surmised
I had escaped my own demise.
I stood watching ‘til the sunrise,
and the house did watch me back.
