Poems by Jonna

Lately, I’ve found myself returning to folklore.

Not in the sense of retelling myths directly, but in the way old stories linger beneath ordinary life — half remembered, inherited through lullabies, warnings, and things said quietly to children before sleep.

I’ve always been drawn to poems where the uncanny enters through domestic space:
a hallway at night,
a dripping faucet,
a bedside lamp,
someone whispering a name they shouldn’t say aloud.

What interests me is not the monster itself, but the emotional logic behind these stories. Why we tell them. What they protect us from. What they allow us to express indirectly — fear, grief, loneliness, longing, inherited unease.

I think many of us carry fragments of old stories without realizing it.

As a child, my mother sang me a lullaby about trolls sleeping beneath mountains in deep caves. The image stayed with me for years: cold rising from stone while a mother gathered her children close in the dark. I was recently reminded of it when I sang the song to my own daughter.

That memory became the poem below.

The Cave Below

My mother used to
hum me a lullaby
when I was a child
about trolls in deep caves
under mountains at night.

A mother gathering her children
under damp blankets of wool,
holding them close
while ice formed
along the cave walls,

reciting old verses,
voice low and steady
in the darkness
while cold rose
from stones.

I lay beneath
my mother’s arm,
watching her lips
shape the final words.

My bedside lamp glowing
like the last lantern
burning out
in the cave below.

The second poem came from a different place — the strange compulsion of childhood rituals and stories meant to keep us from wandering too far into the dark.

What fascinates me about folklore is how easily it slips into the body. Even as adults, part of us still listens.

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Three Times

If you say his name
three times in a row
he will come forth.

The one beneath the lakebed,
hiding in layers below.
You’ve already heard
his rasping voice
beside your ear.

I look in the mirror
and all I see
are the dark circles
under my eyes,
the sound of water
dripping into the sink,
the dim light
spreading shadows
across white tiles.

I shouldn’t listen
to stories I’ve been told
meant to keep me
from wandering
out of bed at night.

But I meet my own gaze
and mouth his name
anyway.

I think I’m increasingly interested in the space where folklore and memory overlap — where inherited stories become part of how we understand fear, safety, and the unknown.

Maybe poetry lives there too.