From Catherine, Annotated · sauerannotated.com/posts/the-monsters-we-carry/
Writing Life3 min read
The Monsters We Carry
A little girl hiding in a closet, the woman she became, and the day she finally opened the door.
a little girl cries into the night,
“help me, please.
can anybody hear me?”
but no one comes.
a mother’s cries fill the darkness,
an angry man towers above,
and monsters wear the faces
of the people we are told to love.
she hides inside a closet,
her little body trembling,
holding her breath,
praying the darkness will swallow her
before he finds her.
will today be the day i die?
outside, the streets are restless.
gangs claim corners,
bullets tear through the night,
and childhood is measured
in the distance between gunshots.
she learns to run
before she learns to trust.
she learns that silence
sometimes means survival.
will today be the day i die?
and then her mother leaves.
no goodbye that makes sense,
no promise to return,
no voice calling her name.
just an empty space
where a mother’s love
was supposed to live.
and the little girl wonders
what was so wrong with her
that even her mother
could walk away.
years pass.
the streets grow quiet.
the bullets disappear.
the closet door stands open.
she is safe now.
but no one told the monsters.
they follow her into dreams,
crawl beneath her skin,
whisper through the silence
of an otherwise peaceful life.
she wakes with a voiceless scream,
her heart racing,
her hands searching
for something she cannot name.
can anybody hear me?
and one day,
her mother returns.
the little girl, now grown,
waits for the missing pieces
to fall into place.
but the emptiness remains.
because sometimes
the person who broke your heart
cannot be the one
who teaches it to heal.
she builds a home,
a marriage,
a life that little girl
could never have imagined.
and then she sees them.
her daughter’s face.
her son’s face.
and there it is,
the love she was never sure
could exist.
it is real.
and she carries it.
she becomes the arms
she once needed,
the voice that answers,
the promise that stays.
but even love
cannot erase every shadow.
a slammed door
becomes a gunshot.
a raised voice
becomes a monster.
and just like that,
she is small again,
hiding in a closet
that no longer exists.
and then, years later,
she sees him.
the monster.
not towering,
not powerful,
not the giant
who haunted her childhood.
just an old man,
frail and small.
and she realizes
he hasn’t held power over her
in years.
but the little girl
never knew.
she was still hiding,
still trembling,
still waiting for someone
to open the door.
but no one was coming.
and this time,
she did not wait.
She fought.
Through the fear,
through the shame,
through every night
she had lain awake
listening for his footsteps.
She found her voice
where silence had lived.
She found her strength
in her children’s faces.
She turned toward the closet,
toward the shadows,
toward the child
still hiding inside them.
And she opened the door.
“I hear you,” she whispered.
“I’ve always heard you.
You kept us alive.
Now it’s my turn
to give us a life.”
And the little girl who once begged
for someone to save her
has become the woman
who did.
Once, she asked the darkness,
will today be the day i die?
Now she looks the monsters in the eye.
Not today.
Today is the day I live.