When I was little, my parents warned me
about The Bogeyman. If I wasn’t good, they said,
The Bogeyman would come and get me.
They never said what The Bogeyman
would do. They never even told me who
The Bogeyman was, or what he looked like.
I’d go to bed imagining a figure in a long coat,
with limbs that clanked like metal and a barrowful
of bones. Perhaps these were the bones of children
who weren’t good, who wouldn’t brush their teeth
or do their homework. The Bogeyman grinned
as he ghosted through my dreams.
As I got older, I learnt The Bogeyman wasn’t real –
he was just a creature cooked up by grown ups
to scare children. I also discovered that the world
was scary enough; there was really no need
for The Bogeyman. Look! There he is now,
his barrow empy, his limbs rusting in the rain.
