She wakes with a start
Then hears a sound like something out of a horror film
When she turns
The surprise catches her off guard
She always thought she would scream in a moment like this
But only a tiny gasp escapes
And then she is frozen
There,
Three feet away
Stands something
Like an antelope on hind legs
Head cocked
Staring
Moonlight glistens on its glowing orbs of eyes
It doesn't move
Or make a sound
Her heart pounds like a jackhammer in her chest
She holds very still
And stares back
Finally she finds her voice:
“What do you want from me?”
It does not speak
But the thoughts enter her mind like being read a foreboding script:
You want to pack your house
Move away from here
You must not do it
If you do, something terrible will happen
Terrible
Terrible
Terrible
Terrible
My parents met, married, and started their family while living in New York City in the early 90s. In 1995, they moved to New Jersey for a job. My mom disliked living in New Jersey so much that after less than a year, she began encouraging my dad to look for other jobs in any other state. She was delighted when he was offered a job across the country but woke up in the middle of the night with a deep dread and unease about making the move. She felt as though something terrible would happen if they relocated. However, her disdain for living in New Jersey overpowered her fear, and they moved anyway.
In high school, I began to experience a bad luck streak with relationships—both with friendships and romantic relationships. My mom confessed her premonition from all those years ago to me. She said she had always wondered how it would manifest and believed my recent streak of conflicts might be it. This story stuck with me as new situations of conflict arose in my life over the following decade. I was often left with the feeling that something bad happening again was inevitable: I was cursed, and this was how my cursed life was destined to unfold.
I used my mom’s story as the basis to create a folk narrative. I begin this narrative with the poem “New Jersey, 1996, 3:33am,” in which my mom is visited in the middle of the night by a part-human, part-animal creature that delivers a prophecy to her telling her not to move.