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 and needing something to protect you, or maybe even to ward off others at times. 

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

Everyone has some form of baggage. Some just have carry-ons, and others have a six-month vacation's worth of baggage. Either way, everyone has a past, everyone has certain experiences they had a harder time getting over, certain events 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 right in front of them, 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 ready or strong or secure enough to take on it. Whereas other people 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, because we all still need a little bit of self-protection. 

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 I painted on the woman’s head, and are known for eating the male after mating. I felt like a black widow at one point: defensive, combative, protective, etc.

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

"Welcome to my breakdown

I hope I didn't scare you

That's just the way we are when we come down

We sweat and laugh and scream here

'Cause life is just a dream here

You know inside you feel right at home here"

- Welcome to My Nightmare by Alice Cooper