My monster

I had a monster in me that I couldn’t control.

The monster didn’t want me to stay small.
But I kept swallowing her over and over again to keep the peace to keep others happy to make sure I wasn’t a burden.

A burden.

I thought my monster made me a burden.
Like I had so much shit someone had to work through in order to get to the sweet tootsie roll center of my tootsie pop, as if the hard outer shell wasn’t just as tasty.

Fuckers were just impatient.

And the thing is, when you break the shell to get to the good stuff you have completely changed the candy and the whole fucking experience.

Don’t take this as me judging you for how you eat your candy, okay, it’s a fucking metaphor and I think you get the picture.

The point is that my monster was dismissed over and over and over again.

My monster was...
Too big.
Too loud.
Too direct.
Too much.

I was ashamed of my monster.

She would scream and shout with anger and pain, begging to be seen and understood.

But she just wanted me to listen. To her. To the things they said to try to tame her.

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you would overreact.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well it’s not my intent.”
“Why do you need me to admit to saying that?”
“If you were anyone else I would have left by now.”
“Isn’t it better to be happy, than to be right?”
“If that’s even true.”

I was being formed around someone else’s comfort, someone else’s needs, desires, wants and passions.

In order to form me around them, they first had to dismantle me.

But my monster wasn’t mean.
I wasn’t mean.
My monster was angry.
Angry that my boundaries were being slowly dismantled. Ignored, trampled, crushed.
Angry that I sought the validation of others to the detriment of myself.

So, no, when my monster came out she wasn’t mean.
My monster was the boundary I didn’t know how to express.

When I let my monster speak, when I gave her the mic, the words, the stage, the presence, is when I started to rebuild myself.

It was never that I couldn’t control my monster.
It was always that I fought her tooth and nail.
She had every right to be angry.

I had every right to be angry.
And so do you.