Phobia:

Karen Cline-Tardiff

June 1, 2022

derived from the Greek Phobos meaning aversion or fear.

Is there a word for being scared to go to school?

Didaskaleinophobia:

derived from the Greek Didasko meaning to teach 

19 children in Uvalde were not scared of learning

the difference between good and bad

And how can you be a good guy

when you still have a gun pointed at someone?

They weren’t afraid of their teachers

Teachers who were afraid and still 

threw themselves on the children.

Teachers who were never taught

how to sacrifice themselves,

but they did.

Agoraphobia:

the irrational fear of crowded or open spaces.

19 children in Uvalde weren’t scared of their classmates crowding around the teacher to learn,

butterflies under glass, pinned down, 

Are we talking about nature or slaughter?

19 children in Uvalde unafraid of running outside

at recess to swing and climb on the jungle gyms,

Are they running for their lives?

Hoplophobia:

Now we’re getting closer to the truth, to the fear of guns.

19 children in Uvalde who had seen Daddy hunt,

played with Super Soakers, 

Is it all just conditioning at this point?

They still feared that assault rifle, 

because they knew what it represented.

The failure of the adults in their lives

to take away the sticks and stones

that are breaking bones and killing children.

Athazagoraphobia:

The fear of being forgotten.

19 children in Uvalde who I’m scared of forgetting,

because their names will be replaced any day now.

How many more children are we willing to forget,

How many more children are we willing to sacrifice?

19 children with names and stories and brothers

and sisters and mothers and fathers and tias and abuelas.

146 children killed by guns THIS YEAR and we’ve already

forgotten their names. Or did we even know them?

Karen Cline-Tardiff has been writing as long as she could hold a pen. Her works have appeared in several anthologies and journals, both online and in print. She founded the Aransas County Poetry Society. She is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Gnashing Teeth Publishing. Find her at karenthepoet.com