There is a monster under my bed.

It lures beneath my pillow

and likes to curdle my fears.

Its warmth crawls over my back,

and I can’t help but release a tear.

I ask mum why the monster wants to scare me,

but all she does is release a groan,

wiping the tears from my glass eyes,

that after all, I’m only seven

and should go back to sleep.

Today,

a balloon slips away from my fingertips,

the vibrant yellow drowning among velvet clouds,

colliding into the horizon as the sun delves into darkness;

a sign that it would never return into my grasp,

and it didn’t.

The monster is having a tantrum.

He seems to be having a bad day.

I tip-toe down to mum’s room,

and words evaporate from my lips.

I see her face crinkling like paper on fire,

she tells me to step back and unleash my fears

like the balloon, I had let go of today,

telling me that in losing, you discover–

I didn’t know what that meant;

and I still don’t.

Today,

I notice a color so familiar,

a beautiful saffron yellow,

guided along the clouds up high.

It plunged into the depth of possibilities

dwelling among the hues of desire.

Serenity clutches onto my hand,

and tells me to release;

and so I do.

The monster

didn’t come tonight,

for there is no monster but ourselves.