There was a Monster

There was a monster
in my childhood home.
For years
I thought it was me.

That’s the funny thing
about frightened children—
hurt them long enough
and they stop asking
why you’re hurting them.
They start asking
what is wrong with me?

So I searched myself
for the monster.

Maybe it lived in my mouth
because I spoke too much.
Maybe in my hands
because I touched something wrong.
Maybe in my feet
because I wanted to go outside.
Maybe somewhere beneath my skin
there was something rotten
that made punishment
keep finding me.

I couldn’t find it.

So eventually
I started hurting
the child who couldn’t find it.

Me.

Imagine that.
A little girl
already frightened of the world
coming home
and discovering
there was nowhere safe
inside herself either.

That is what trauma did.
It followed me into my bedroom.
Climbed beneath the covers.
Learned my voice.
And eventually
when it whispered,
You deserve this,
it sounded so much like me
that I believed it.

There were nights
when tomorrow felt
like a threat.

And sometimes I wonder
what would have happened
if one of those nights
had swallowed me completely.

People would have searched
for the monster afterward.
They always do.
They would have looked
under beds.
Inside friendships.
Inside schools.
Inside diaries.
Inside that child’s mind.
Anywhere except the places
where she had already pointed.

But I lived.

Long enough to grow up.
Long enough to finally turn around
and look into the house
that raised me.

Long enough to understand:

there was a monster
in my childhood home.

It just wasn’t
the little girl.

It never was.