By Nandini Joshi
"Check for Monsters Under Your Bed!"
I don’t see them—
Only the one *on* my bed,
Tugging at the hem,
Threatening to rise from under my fabric of lies,
Rear its ugly head, shatter the guise.
Attention it craves, and apathy I feed it,
Afraid to meet its eye, lest I believe it.
I know not of life before it took hold—
Frozen still I lay, as its gaze grows bold.
A web of lies it spins, and my yearnings there like pesky flies stick-
Fallen prey to its soothing tunes
Drunk on its fantasies, my mind headily swoons.
Ticking clocks, narrowing walls claw at my senses—
Tenacity creeps in, climbing over it's barbed fences.
The hands I wished would cradle me to sleep; free me of lament,
Now tighten their grip around my throat—
A chokehold of regret.
Lullabies twist into helpless pleas,
I lay there dumbstruck, my sanity slowly flees.
A final impulse, repulsion of the soul, pushes me from the monster, tethers me again to the life it stole-
My dreams of grandiose, and banality that used to thrill me all lay about wounded so dearly.
I approach the debris timidly
I’ll stitch the wounds now—not another mask to cover them.
Monsters on my bed?
I think I freed them