When I was younger I slept with my door open wide and the hall light on.
As if the synthetic glow of the 88 watt would keep the demons and monsters from entering the realm of safety I had built up around my twin bed;
the stuffed animals and blankets acting as reinforcement from an evil I had dreamt up.
I would imagine a dark hooded figure
entering only by moonlight through the window next to my bed.
And he would snatch me and run as if I was a baton being passed.
But that bad guy never came and I grew up.

I shut my door at night and turned off the lights letting the darkness encase me,
a new sort of safety, in which I did not need to see the world but could feel
under the guise of a sleep which never came.
I would toss and turn fearing a new evil that was rooted in me
an evil I could not, would not shake because there was no way.
It was who I was.
It was the fibers of my hair and the rolls of my skin.
It was every bit a part of my chemical makeup as the atoms and molecules that formed me in the first place.

When I closed my eyes I would imagine a dark hooded figure running down the street child in hand, as if she were a toy or a stick.
And they would run and run until they could no more.
And then the shady being would throw back their hood
I would be staring into the eyes of a blue mastermind,
evil so deep that it would uproot a child and transform them
into nothing but a weak broken creature.
I would stare into the eyes of a hurt that ran so deep
pulsing with broken dreams and promises
with the fear of rejection and the inevitability of despair.
I would stare into the eyes of a soulless soul with no clue of what they were doing
no realization of the fall out that would occur.
Only the knowledge of pre conceived notions that had been instilled in its head.
Shouts of ‘grow up and change’, ‘you’re worthless the way you are.’
You need to bend and fold to fit the molds of a society that breaks everything good they have.
I would stare into the eyes of love, lust, and loss.
I would stare into the eyes of myself.