I think I knew you as a child
not then you were young but when I was.
you weren't a child at all to me
in fact I think you were something else entirely,
a haunting shadow at my back
less peter pan and more boogie man
I could feel you growling at the bottom of my ears
hot breath wet with spit whispering things I couldn't understand yet
you were frightening-
the reason I slept with all the lights on
and the closet door always either wide open or completely shut
my fear of what you were slept in my dreams
it manifested your face in my imagination
as I had never been brave enough to look at it
as a minster with fangs and claws
gills and wings, things that couldn't exist together
that somehow all lived on you.
I was seven or so when I first felt you
and not knowing what to call you I shouted at you all the names
of all the four letter words my little ears had hear
from much older mouths
I used to hear you though, your feet bumped to the beat of my
heart like you  wanted to match my pace
like you thought I walked with my heart as my feet
your breath was as heavy as mine
and sometimes I swore you lived inside me
how else would you know the structure of my organs so well
I lost you around 20 when
I learned that monsters weren't real they were just something that
bore from vivid and growing children's brains
a year later I meet you again
I didn't know your face but you felt like
something I felt before
you made my heart race,
my fever pace around apartments and staircases
my breath struggled to keep up
and so did yours as you chased me
matching my foot steps and labored breaths
acting like a shadow around noon that reapeared again
after you thought it left
the monster I had known as a child
really was you wasn't it?
something powerful and scary and unknown, but familiar
I wish I would have looked under my bed sooner
I wish that instead of having fear for fangs I had strength to see your eyes
yo find out sooner that monsters don't live under beds or in closets
and they don't exist solely for children
that monsters can live inside us
and if we just look at them without covering our eyes with fingers our blankets
we could see that the unknown isn't a masked monster
that what is masked could be love,
be it scary and unknown
it lives in us just the same
wanting to be seen for what it is and what it is is what we are
apart of ourselves that never changes or ages and
knows us wholly as us, even down to how or organs are structered.