"Monster" -A Short Story

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 I have a monster in my closet. It's been there all my life. It seems like the bigger I get, the bigger my monster gets too. My monster likes to be taken care of. It likes it when I feed it. If I don't feed it, it goes away for a while. Then one day, it comes back hungrier than before. I wonder where my monster goes. Does it go to another closet? Perhaps under a bed? I can't be sure. All I know is that it's gone, and I can't help but smile. 

When my monster leaves, I feel calm. There's nothing for me to worry about. No creaking floorboards in the night. No low growls to find me in the morning. Just me. I get to run and do whatever I want. For once, I get to eat the food I so generously lay out for my monster. I get it all to myself. For once, I peek into my closet and see the barren corners. The truth reveals itself, "My monster is far away from me", and at night I sleep like a child again.

I walk on thin ice until my monster returns. I pace in the night, feeling its absence. No matter how much clean air I breathe in, no matter how hard I try, my monster always comes back. Am I inviting it? Ever so loyal. It seeps in during the dead of night to haunt me. It lurks behind me, towering over me like the shadow of a moth against a flame. Begging for food. As the flame grows, my monster follows. I'm left with my defenses down, servant to a master. It taps on my window so quietly, tip toeing around. Then, it screams at me to let it in and I always oblige.

My monster will always come. I wonder when it leaves, if it is ever really gone. Maybe it stays just out of view. Maybe it waits for the perfect moment to come back. My ever living ghost. The light of my life. I am a knight before a mirror, ready for battle. Only to run away and bring the disease with me. Infected. I have been fighting this war since I was small. Curled up in my bed, letting the covers swallow me. Hearing the whispers underneath me. My monster always seemed to know how to follow me into every corner of my world. Things I knew I should enjoy were off-limits to me because my monster guarded them. I knew so little when I was young. 

Now I call my monster by name. I protect myself. Nevertheless, I can only do so much. When my inescapable death finds me. It is in these moments when I forget the name I call it. I forget my truth, resorting only to the lies it tells me. It whispers from the shadows, "We are one in the same". It is in these moments when the monster is in me. My monster becomes me. My monster is me. 


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