Bedtime.
Defenses are down.
Now the only thing between me
and the Wickerwax
is Agent Ted E. Bear.

It lives under the bed,
but can't survive in light.
When you think it's safe,
he grabs you tight
and pulls you
in the blink of an eye.

Many have fallen to the Wickerwax.
Dinosaurs, ponies, a Spongebob doll
(although it was a little creepy anyways).
Agent Bear is all that remains.
I know I'll be safe.

He's escaped my grasp,
where is he?? I gasp.
Oh, he's right next to me.
Too far for comfort, just let me-

Oh no.
He's fallen off
I rush to the side to see how far away he is.
He's out of reach...

And as the room fills with the smell of rotting meat,
a lone hand stretches out from under the bottom of the sheets.
The hand is skeletal, and crudely thatched.
The fingers are thin, long, sharp, and the arm to match.

It grabs the bear and pulls him under,
its nails dragging deep veins in the floor.
I want to scream, but the odor chokes me.
It'd have blinded me were it not already to dark to see.

As my bear's last paw slips away,
I hear the faintest, foulest voice say,
                                                            ­     *"There's not much else you can do,
                                                             ­       but down here,
                                                           ­         there's always room for you."

Can you feel me as I approach you?
                                                            ­                                                                 ­                     It's me,
the same person who has been there for you,
every time you've needed a hand to pull you through,
or a voice to help decide what you should do.
Can you see me?
                                I'm still here for you.
                                                            ­          I'm by your side, where I'm supposed to be,
totally there to help you face adversity
or just plain whenever you may happen to need me.
Well, look next to you!
Can't you see me?

I've always been in your shadow, in your wake,
watching you trot this earth, treating it as yours to take.
I've always admired you, the way you can live your life,
the way you take and release all the trouble you get, all the strife.
I've always wanted to be your friend,
to call myself good enough to know you,
to be able to look back at a time in our lives and say
                                                             ­                                "Yeah, that's what we used to do..."
I have secretly always wanted to love you,
because you have changed me.
Just through knowing you,
                                                talking to you,
                                                                ­           you have made me who I am meant to be.
I'm with you and the world is sweet bliss.
Can't you see me as I tell you this?

Can you feel me as I stand here beside you?
As I stand here, viewing in awe at the slightest thing you do?
Can you hear me as I stand here next to you?
And do you choose to deny my endless pleas of                                                               ­ "I love you"?

You would never do anything to hurt me
                                                              ­           so why did you?
You would never do anything to put me down
                                                            ­                        so why did you?
I looked up to you, you were "all that".
Look at me now, and you'll just see the brim of my hat.
Can you see me here next to you?
                                                            ­ Hear me?
                                                             ­                  Feel me?
No,
you can't.
I finally, on my own, do stand,
and you won't find me now and you never can.
I stand out of your shadow and in my own light.
The world is always a clear, serene place with you out of sight.
I am my own person, my own self, my own Me.
I am not you and that's how it was meant to be.

I have so many friends, it's really quite amazing.
They make me laugh,
they make me sad,
we have arguments,
but we always make up afterwards.
They really are the best.

I have the best home.
My friends come over all the time
and we jump on my bed
and tell each other stories.
We all hug each other too, it's nice.
I'm pretty sure all my neighbors
are really jealous,
but don't tell them I said so....

Sometimes, when things get bad,
my friends like to hug me.
I don't know how I got such friends.
In fact, I can't quite remember a time
when I was without them...
ever....

My friends have been weird lately.
They keep trying to get me
to do weird things.
I don't like how they talk to me now.
I don't know who they've become.
I'm lost, and I don't know what to do....

My friends hurt me today.
I couldn't stop them.
There was so much blood....
The ambulance didn't take me
to the normal hospital, though....

Mom and dad say there's
something wrong with me.
They keep saying that it
wasn't my friends that hurt me....
That's ridiculous!  I saw them do it!

They won't let me leave the hospital.
They say it's for my own safety
or something.
My friends haven't been happy
that I'm stuck in here.
They tell me so, all the time...

I made a big mistake today.
I ripped off my ears
because I was tired of hearing
the mean things my friends were saying.
It didn't work.  I can still hear them.

Mom and dad don't live with me anymore.
The doctor says this is my new home.
I don't like it, it's too depressing
and the clothes they gave me
don't fit quite right.
But he said it's for my own good,
so that I don't try and
hurt my friends...

An unseen hand wraps me in my blanket
but the blanket is so cold.
They cover my eyes and everything is dark.
I do not see a way out.
So I stop fighting
                               and slowly
                                                    fall
 ­                                                            asleep