Poetic Pennies For My Thoughts

The Dark

As a child, I was always afraid of the dark.

By the age of 5, I was still unable to sleep in a room by myself.

Whenever my mom turned off the lights, I would always picture vampires and monsters and red glowing eyes and sharp teeth and decaying, rotting faces.

Sometimes, I wished for fantasy creatures to be real. Other times, not so much.

And this fear extends to present day; even now I run out of rooms where I have just turned off the lights.

So don't make me turn off the lights when I'm the only person downstairs. Unless you want me to bump into all sorts of things.

I sprint past dark rooms in my house, especially my sister's room, which is sometimes uninhabited, all the more reason to run away.

I found comfort in the light, its warmth, its brightness, because the dark was too cold, too scary, too dark.

The monster under my bed exists.

It likes to attack dangling, unsuspecting feet and fingers.

It comes in the form of a bear with glowing green eyes, pelt black as night.

In my mom's room, it is vanquished by her brave spirit and I can sleep peacefully.

In my room, however, the monster thrives, and during the summer, it likes to attack uncovered arms and torsos as well, making the summer hard to sleep through with blankets covering every inch of my body.

So if you see me cocooned in warm quilts no matter the season, do not question. I am merely protecting myself from the monsters.

The blankets are the ultimate protection. If I do not delve under them within a few seconds of turning the lights off, another monster will come get me, this time, in a form similar to a cobra's.