Tuur Verheyde
Halloween 19
Updated: Nov 6, 2022
Halloween is the day
Of hallowed hormesis
The day we wear Evil,
As decorated darkness,
As domesticated subconscious,
As fear fathomed
Into flesh.
The day we pretend
That we have fixed
Mankind’s broken back,
And can accept the stranger
As our friend, as ourselves.
Difference isn’t death.
No banning or building walls
On Halloween.
Before and after,
Monsters wear the masks of men
Are among us,
Have become us
Or are the strangers we love to fear.
But on Halloween
The monster’s mug isn’t Us
Nor is it Them,
It’s something we haven’t seen
By then.
A demon, a devious one
With a grin like the Pot of Greed
And menace written
In its DNA
Doing everyone dirty from the shadows
Cause that is what it does.
On Halloween, Evil is
Just another party-pooping pest,
Just another Satan in a Sunday hat,
Something we can cope with,
Something we can fix
Without fixing ourselves.