When I was a child,
I was never scared
of monsters under my bed,
the dark,
or the morbid threat
of a half open closet door.

When I was a child,
I never wanted
a night light.
Never needed to feel safe
amongst the shadows,
of my bedroom.

It is only now,
now that I am not a child,
that I realise
this,
is what the monsters wanted.

For given free reign
in the dark,
they crawled from beneath my bed,
and found a new home
inside my head.

Now the monsters
I scoffed at in childhood,
have become
the monsters of the mind.