When you were a kid, you saw things in the dark.
Monsters under the bed, eyes watching from the closet, shadows on the wall.
You saw these things and knew that they were real. It didn't matter how many adults tried to convince you they weren't.
You knew.
Then you grew up.
The time came when you could sleep with one foot off the edge of the bed; you could go down the long hallway to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning on the light.
You forgot about the monsters.
But I'll let you in on a little secret.
Adults are blind. They stumble through life and don't give any thought to what's waiting for them at the end of the rainbow.
Children can see. Children can hear.
Adults see what they want to see. Reality as it best suits their current situation in life.
Children see what's really there.
The shadow on the edge of your vision, the creaking footsteps in the hall outside your bedroom. What you thought was a trick of the light, just the pipes creaking in an old house, it's them.
They are our demons.
They haunt our childhoods and follow us into our adult lives. What used to be the smiling face at your bedroom window your parents swore was just a tree branch is now anger issues, or an insatiable lust.
Maybe you have an addiction problem. Maybe you can't stop lying. Maybe you like violence.
When you put on blinders to the realm of the shadows you turned your fears into parasites.
They've been with you all along.
They start with whispers in your ear, suggestions that are seductive and virtuously harmless.
Then comes the pushing, the pulling, the need do their bidding, to cross a line.
Then comes the spiral. The endless fall into a habit that started as a slow poison but turned into the spiritual equivalent of drinking bleach.
Then comes the deepest sleep of all. Your demons cloud your mind with an ancient lullaby, and the child that once saw a monster under their bed is all but gone.
They take over.
And mom and dad can't tell you monsters aren't real, that the shadows are just your imagination.
Because you're the monster now.