Do you ever just feel the need
To sit and read stories of
Fantastic things – like monsters
And creatures of the night,
Beyond what humans can see
Or most people actually believe in,
Because somehow you always seem to find
Little pieces of yourself within the pages
Of such an unrealistic,
Yet so perfectly relatable
Story book….
And somehow in a land with monsters and madness
You feel a little more understood…?
Because I do.
Do you ever feel like maybe
You relate more to a world
Just a little less human than ours?
And the monsters you’re familiar with
Are a little bit more accurately depicted
In the fairytales than in
Logical descriptions that our
Textbooks can come up with…
Maybe this is why I can run away
With a book in hand for days
And not miss the reality of the ordinary –
Yet somehow even more scary –
World, because at least
Behind the 12 point font, crammed in between
Two pieces of cardboard
I know that the person who
Brought this world into existence
Must have had a glimpse into something
That made them feel welcome, too.
But does the fact that I can feel at home
In these lands with these beasts
And these heros who inspire me
Make me someone or something
A little less than a fully normal human being…?
Or does having monsters chase after me,
Although not quite as literally,
Make me more of a human than everyone else seems-
Do my weaknesses and scary things
Make me more real, more alive, and less weak
Than the seemingly almost robotic
Human beings that surround me daily….
And maybe I love to run away to these
Alternate realities, because
In my reality, it’s improper to
Believe that we can talk about our monsters
And creepy crawly things
Like they are normal –
Because they can’t in fact be seen.
Because it’s not meant of us to be open
With each other about our monsters
Because we are taught from such a young age
That monsters aren’t real
But they are.
They aren’t green or big
They don’t have shadows or teeth
And they can’t breath fire from their lungs and burn me
But they are silent creatures that love to appear
At three A.M.
and haunt me in silence
and remind me of things that should have been forgotten.
But I am inspired
By the warriors that fight the monsters and beasts
In fairytales and story books
Because they give me the courage to fight my own.
Because even though the monsters I have
Come to know are invisible,
If I fight boldly and daringly
And relentlessly, with more of a determination to win
Than they have to make me lose
Then maybe I can fight my monsters,
And win, too.
