Far and Wide

Eight

I am afraid of spiders, clowns, and those fish who don't even look like fish but rather like some demon even Satan is embarrassed to call his own. Now, according to society my fears are "childish". This is spewed at me as if it were a loaded gun pointed at the target board of my emotions. Yet instead of spitting fire back, all I can think to say is "thank you".
When I was young I wasn't afraid of the dark, or the monsters in my closest, or under my bed, but rather the one across the hall from me. I was petrified of the turning of the doorknob, the alarm signaling he was coming out to play. My body would grow rigid with chills whenever he snarled my name from his rabid mouth.
I wasn't afraid of the monsters with six eyes and sharp claws, rather the one with combed hair and a perfect smile. My nightmares were plagued with the face with the same blue eyes as my own. The same blood that gave me life was the black poison that flowed through the shell my personal demon harbored in.
So thank you. Thank you if my fears seem childish because at the end of the day I will always pick having my heart race at the sight of an eight legged arachnid rather than the demented cackle of my own monster rattling my bones in the night. Thank you for teaching children that their fears are silly and shouldn't be taken seriously. Thank you for already hushing their trembling voices just so you can be off to the comfort of your own bed. But most of all thank you for lying to them every night by telling them monsters are not real simply because you cannot see them.
This is the reason we have victims going quiet about the crimes committed against them, because who is to say the man that raped that girl in the hush of the night was nothing more then just the wind howling through the trees.