You shiver,
your heart going tap-tappa-tap.
You quiver
and leap into somebody’s lap.
You discover
your mouth’s hanging open—yet you can’t speak.
You cover
your face with your trembling hands—
then you peek.
The stories sound real.
(At least that’s how you feel,
though you know, in your heart, that they ain’t.)
You say, “Can’t fool me.”
“There’s no way.” “It can’t be!”
You stand up, you sit down,
you nearly faint.
But you listen,
to stories of vampires and zombies galore,
to stories of hauntings and murder and gore,
and each one more scary than what came before—
till at last you leap up and race out the door!
Then crack it open
and say, “Hey, I was hopin’ you
could maybe just tell me one more?”