Conquering Fear Through Poetry (Or at Least Diminishing It!)

Sometimes writing can help us conquer or at least diminish our fears.  By placing the object of fear at the center of a piece of writing, a healthy distance is often created.  This way, the writer can explore the fear in a safe manner.  I wrote such a poem back in October 2009-- about an animal that had left me in a panicked state five months earlier.

My fear developed one warm spring evening in May 2010.  Sitting at my dining room table, I heard a soft whooshing sound.  Turning my head, I saw a black-winged creature fly past my ear.  For the next minute, this creature flew in large figure eights, back and forth, between the dining room and the living room.  Opening the front door, I hoped that it would fly out of my house.  At the same time, I was nervous that another one would fly in.

Unsure about the identity of this black-winged creature (a bird or a bat?), I called my landlords (Connie and Joe) who conveniently lived upstairs on the second floor.  Armed with brooms, they spent the next half hour assessing the situation.  Tapping on cupboards, looking between blinds, bending over to look underneath furniture, and opening cabinets, there was no black creature in sight.  "Call us if you see it again," they told me as they exited my apartment.

Standing in the middle of the dining room, I thought to myself, "It must be a bird.  It didn't look like a bat.   Hopefully it will turn up tomorrow and I'll be able to get it to fly outside."  With this line of reasoning, two hours of solid sleep ensued.

Around one o'clock in the morning, I awoke and walked around my apartment for a few minutes.  Nestling back underneath the covers, I was about to close my eyes when I spotted the black-winged bird circling above me.   I grabbed my pillow and blanket and ran out of my bedroom, slamming the wooden door behind me.  Although startled, my worries were now put to rest, at least for the night, since it was securely shut in my room.  Placing my pillow and blanket on the dark blue couch in the living room, I made myself comfortable, eager to get some sleep, or so I thought...

My nerves, still slightly rattled, I decided to sleep with the living room light on.  Resting my head on the pillow, I glanced out in front of me and glimpsed an image that still haunts me to this day.  Perched on the tips of its outstretched wings on the light wooden floor of my hallway, two piercing eyes stared right out at me.  "Oh my God, it's a bat," my heart whispered as my breath was trapped in my stomach.

Jumping straight out off the couch like a jack-in-the-box, I flew through the kitchen and out the back door.  Fear gripped my body as I stood stiffly, shivering and shaking on my back porch, in shock.  As a cool breeze brushed against my legs, it dawned on me that I was standing outside of my house, barefoot, in my pajamas, at 1:30 in the morning, without a key.  I was locked out.  But that was the least of my worries...there was a bat in my house!

Tears streaming down my face, body trembling, the outdoor lights came on over the driveway as I carefully walked to the front door, making sure not to step on any pebbles or other sharp objects.  Regulating my breathing was difficult as I stood, hand poised over Connie and Joe's doorbell, debating whether or not I should wake them up in the middle of the night.

Suddenly a light turned on as I heard heavy footsteps quickly creak down the steps from the second floor.  Connie swung open the front door, took one look at my red blotchy face and said, "Are you OK?  Did it come back?  I heard you downstairs."  Giving me a hug, she motioned me into the house and said, "Come inside.  We'll take care of this."  Dressed in their pajamas, Connie and Joe sat down with me on their couch and asked me what happened.  After recounting the story over a cup of hot mint tea, they informed me that they were going downstairs to take care of the bat and that I was welcome to rest on their couch.  More than several minutes passed when I heard the chimes of their grandfather clock signal 2:00 in the morning and thumping noises coming from my apartment.  It wasn't until Connie and Joe came back upstairs that I found out what had occurred....

When Connie and Joe first entered my apartment, they once again searched for the bat and didn't find anything.  So they shut off the lights, sat on my couch, and waited for the darkness to entice it out of its hiding spot.  After a few minutes, they spotted the bat flying in circles overhead in the living room.  Turning on the lights, the bat soon became disoriented and they tapped the ceiling with their broomsticks, hoping that the bat would fall to the ground.  Eventually it did and it curled up, folding its wings underneath itself.  Seizing the opportunity, Connie threw a towel over the bat and proceeded to stomp on it, repeatedly, until she was sure that it was dead.  As my landlords walked back into their apartment, Connie greeted me, holding a wrapped up towel in her arms.  Reaching out toward me she said, "It's dead.  We took care of it.  Do you want to see it?"

"No!  I don't want to see it!" I replied in horror.

Still shaken up from the incident, my landlords thankfully allowed me to sleep on their couch that night.  For several weeks afterward, falling asleep was difficult since I envisioned a bat flying into my room or hanging inside my closet.  At the time, I was reading a book at school with my students called, "Owl in the Shower".  For some reason, when the visions of the bat came into my head, I pictured an owl sweeping in and eating the bat.  It wasn't until a few days later that I learned that owls are indeed predators of bats.

Owls became my protectors and as a gesture of support, my good friend (I'll call her Brenda), gave me a stuffed owl that hoots when its stomach is pressed.  Resting on my night table, this owl comforted me for the next few weeks when I looked at it before I went to sleep.  Owls soon started to hold a special place in my heart.

Fast forward five months later to when a poet, whose speciality is Chinese poetry, came to my school to lead a workshop with the fourth grade students.  Participating in the activity with them, I had brought in a special object as each of the students had.  Placing my stuffed owl on the table, I followed the directions of the poet as he told us to look at our object, listen to a special sound that he would make by running a wooden stick along the inside of a bowl, and to let our imaginations go.  And that is how the poem featured below was created.


Metamorphosis

Cowering in shadows
Huddled in corners
Shielding against onslaught
of ferocious, teeth baring bats.

Arms outstretched
Lying atop wings of owl

Soaring, gliding, whisking
through mountain landscape
Arctic air rushes past ears

Majestic snow-capped mountains
dotted by dark green pine trees
Ice piercing wind
makes every tip of my body sing

Head ducks
beneath stalactites and stalagmites
Guarding cavernous opening
Dark black envelopes me

As high-pitched shrieking, teeth baring bats
zoom toward me
Mouth opens wide
Bats fly through my lungs, arms, legs
Bats become me.
I become the bats.


Riding on the wings of the owl in the poem helped me to fly right into my fear, the bats, eventually becoming them and making me feel more empowered.

Questions to ponder:  What are you scared of?  How can you use poetry, writing, or some other art form to help conquer or diminish a fear?  Have you ever done this before?  How did that make you feel?