monsters

Malinda Markham writes from Japan that she found the monster alarming.

I didn't mean to alarm.

I think we all have our monsters, beasts that gnaw at the edges of our happiness.

My monster is a scab-picker. He likes triangles. He likes to replay pain. He gets nervous when things seem easy.
He prefers jealousy, shame and isolation. He likes pessimism and distrust and he and I are good at finding malintent.

He likes it when I read about card games people play across the country, or about celebrity gossip or check which of my exes are posting personal ads. He savors the critic in me.

He enjoys schadenfreude, freudian slips and slippery slopes. He gets wide eyed and wild at night. He likes to knock and knock on locked doors. He likes to knock things over. He wants me to know what people say about me when I'm not there. He wants me to wonder. He wants me to ask. Then he likes it if I pick some more at a scab.

He likes to see my childhood as an unhappy one, my failures as signs, my successes as accidents. He craves whole days without work.

He was born out of alarm, actually, the middle-of-the night alarm of my parents shouting. He gave me claws to survive, and for that I am grateful. But I am going to stop feeding him if I can. I'm working that muscle anyway. He's whimpering.

There are some good things going on that I'd actually prefer he not fuck with this time. He doesn't need to shrivel up and die, just rest like a tired dog in the sun...