A Scare Poem by Burkina Faso

The loudest mosquito I have ever heard
Buzzes in my ear
And before it ceases
It Reveals its true identity as the
Anguished cry of a small girl

Now sounds a mean man laugh
It echoes through the air
Through the silence a girl screams again
I look around
Footsteps on the
Grass outside my house
I watch the windows

A leaf dances violently over
A light outside
Casting strange shadows
Someone in the other house
Screams
As the bushes rustle
But it was nothing
They laugh

A cockroach
Scurries up near the couch
Worried and in a hurry
It is fast with
Orange and black racing stripes
I teeter on a delicate box as I
Hoist a book above its head and
Slam
Its leg is gone
But it gets away as I go at with a shoe
The geckos laugh at me

My heart is worried now
It throbs in my chest faster
And faster
Cigarette smoke fills the air
From who?
When I move my elbow
The book by my side goes crack
And my blood turns blue with
Fear
My hands shake and my muscles are
Jumpy

I am scared

When will someone get home?
Two dogs bare their teeth
And growl and roar at
Something
I can hear them
I am scared

I need to leave
But my feet twitch as they touch the ground
Then my eyes are pendulums
They search for unseen demons and geists
As they open wider
Is that really what they look for
Or do they look for where my mind has gone
My sane sense of security
What is it that I’m scared of?