Monster under my bed

when i was little, i used to think monsters only came out at night. the kind you hide under the covers from, the kind that wait for you under your bed, the kind you pray your dad will forever protect you from.

i didn’t know that these monsters could have your last name. i didn’t know they could tuck you in at night, holding you tight, whispering that they loved you, and still make you afraid to sleep.

this poem is for the little girl who learned too early on that safety was found in her silence. the little girl keeping quite whilst yearning for that missing love. i never understood how someone could be both your protector and your deepest pain. This poem is about that contradiction.

monster under my bed

the first monster i ever met called himself dad, extended version;

you taught me to check

for the monsters under my bed

but you never told me

that they could look and sound like you

you hugged me tightly

as if to say ‘i love you’

but love shouldn’t bruise the way yours did

you called it parenting, discipline

and i called it breaking.

you bragged about experiencing worse

as if pain was a family heirloom to be proud of

something so sacred that you refused to let die

i carried the weight of your ghosts

without knowing their names

i mistook your silence for safety and calmness

and confused my fear for your respect

i used to pray you’d change, holding on to the man i thought you could be

until i realised

the little girl i was

is still waiting for an apology that is never going to come

you assured me that i would thank you one day

but there’s no gratitude in surviving

only draining exhaustion in pretending it didn’t hurt

i carried your lessons

like scarred bruises in my memory

you called them lessons

i called them warnings

those bruises turned to blueprints

of the person i refuse to ever mirror

i may still flinch and hide

when someone raises their voice

still apologise

for taking up space,

a space that was never yours to own

you told me monsters weren’t real

but i’ve spent many of my years

unlearning your voice

just to hear mine again.

reflection:

i don’t hate you.

at least not any more.

but i do hate that you made me think love was something i had to earn.

i hate that i still defend you in conversations, still shrink when someone reminds me of you and still search for reasons to believe you did mean well. you were damaged, right?

but mostly, i hate that i inherited your silence, that i learned to swallow my own voice because i thought keeping the peace was the same as being safe.

this piece was written in honour of every little girl who has learnt to love carefully, who mistook survival for affection. healing is not linear. it’s unlearning the voices that we once believed defined us, and teaching ourselves gentleness again.

healing doesn’t look like forgiveness. it looks like growing softer in a world that made you hard. it looks like untangling the fear grown from his love. it looks like letting myself rest peacefully without guilt. it looks like choosing not to pass down the same pain, and creating a new family heirloom. breaking the cycle you so proudly refused to let loose of.

it looks like checking under the bed and realising there’s nothing left to be afraid of

except becoming you

and i now know

that i won’t.