Papa Roger a Poem

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This is as serious as I'll ever get here. I promise. It was the day of my appointment with my therapist. One of the things I was working on was arachnophobia. Wouldn't you know it, that morning I opened my front door and walked straight into a spiders web. I went wild. I scream. I shouted. I backed into my house (luckily no one else was home). I stripped off my clothes as I ran for the shower, a very hot, hot shower. After the shower and almost late for my appointment, I showed up at the therapists office shaking like a leaf.


Then my poor therapist had to calm me down. He made up a story on the spot of a Mama spider and her babies and a woman that walked into a web. He was trying to get me to view spiders as something neutral instead of something malevolent.  He want me to understand that was what men did with them that were evil. 


Getting over arachnophobia was a huge step in therapy in my treatment for Post Trauma Stress Disorder. The following poem came out of this bitter sweet memory. I originally wrote this article/poem for Helium under my pen name of Aristtia Yarns a while ago. I hope you enjoy the poem originally called Arachnophobia. Here I'm calling it:


Papa Roger and the Spider


Papa Roger, there's a spider in the hall.
Papa Roger, I am frightened and feel small.
Papa Roger, would you hear me if I call?                                                
Papa Roger, don't make me kill it, I'm not that tall.

It won't hurt you, you'd say to me.
"How the web sparkles, look and see."
Again, you'd tell me the fable of 'The Lady & the Spider at Her House',
how the spider dropped on her and her scream as if she'd seen a mouse.
Neither the lady nor the spider could get free;
both the lady and the spider wanted, just to be.

But sometimes a woman wanders into a web,
when this happens, life falls down upon her head.
It's not her fault when she falls prey, and left for dead;
The fault lies with the spinner of deceit instead. 

It is over, you'd gently call to me...
Come back; it is but memory... 
That was then and this is now.
There is no way for him to hurt you now.

You'd remind me that the spiders' of childhood have long since past.
You'd welcome the adult-child when she comes back a last.