Arachnophobia

This piece was inspired by a poem I wrote about a year ago. The opening line is “I feel a spider on my head” and the whole poem is a metaphor for having your guard up, having something to protect you, or maybe even ward others off at times. 

The spider is a metaphor for having a personal shield. A protective layer in a way. 

Everyone has some form of baggage or trauma. Some just have carry-ons and others have a six month vacation worth of baggage. Either way, everyone has a past, has certain experiences they had a harder time getting over, certain things that happened to them years ago but still trigger them today. 

In my poem, I express how some people don’t want to deal with other people’s baggage. How sometimes if it’s exposed or right in front of you, people get scared or intimidated. That is the point of the spider on the head. We all have something that could easily scare someone off if they’re not strong or secure enough to take on it. There are other people that look past it, and just see it as a part of you. 

I don’t feel this way nowadays but when I was writing this poem, I felt like I had spiders all over me. I didn’t feel lovable, or I felt harder to love or approach or take a chance on. Since then, it’s only condensed to the one spider on my head. 

Our past mistakes are only a part of our story. It’s what makes us the person we are today. If you didn’t have those stories to tell, you would be a different person now. I want others to embrace the spider on their heads. Whether it’s just one or a dozen. 

Black widow spiders, in reality are much smaller than the one on the woman’s head, are known for eating the male after mating. I felt like a black widow at one point.

Arachnophobia is defined as the fear of spiders. People have a fear of commitment, dealing with other people’s baggage, communication, approaching people, etc.