GABRIELLE MUNSLOW

Before I Become Alice

To be a poet with metrophobia—

where words wound and scrape the tongue—

is like a footballer scared of the ball,

who tackles everyone but his fear.

Or a clown with coulrophobia,

painting his face with his eyes half-closed.

A stargazer with siderophobia,

wanting to look at the dazzling stars, but unable to.

A dancer afraid of movement.

A bee afraid of honey.

That’s how we all live, in some way—

scared the things we love will undo us.

Love is a cracked secret.

Neophobia—fear of new things—

baptises me.

So I cling to what’s old and familiar,

like threading a needle with no thread,

rereading the same chapter

of a tired book.

There’s something else beneath it all.

A word in Russian: toska.

It has no true translation—

a quiet ache that settles in,

like a guest who never leaves,

heavy as fog,

nameless, but everywhere.

I’m looking in a mirror,

but it’s distorted.

Eisoptrophobia—fear of mirrors.

Toska looks back at me

through the glass.

I smash the looking glass

before I become Alice

and enter Wonderland.

Gabrielle Munslow is a poet and nurse practitioner based in West Sussex, UK. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Half and One, The Lake, Sky Island Journal, and Bristol Noir. She writes at the intersection of myth, memory, and emotional restraint.

Previous / Next