When I was a child,
I only slept once in awhile.
I would always be too scared
that the monsters would be there.
Now I lay awake at night in bed,
but the scary monsters don't live in the closet anymore,
they live inside my head instead
and they're not just folklore.
All the monsters became voices
that fill and overspill in my mind
telling me I made the wrong choices,
and then sleep, I rarely find.

The shadows don't make me scream,
they don't have faces like they used to.
It's different now, even when I dream,
I'm not afraid of the things I used to,
so instead of boogeyman and sandman,
I have nightmares about being alone,
about death, about memories that can
start the tears, and turn me to stone.

Paralyzed in fear still; much the same,
but there is no mommy to run to when you're 25,
and these monsters play a stronger game,
because 24/7, they are alive
and they know me, inside out,
leeching onto every insecurity,
keeping me awake with voices about
how I'll never be free from me.

It's so much more terrifying now.