The Dark

A Poem by Ollie

True story of poetry from my own life, my crippling fear of the dark stopping around 2011.

I used to be terrorized by the dark.
The silence, stretching out, waiting.
My life, a series of moments before the scare.

Like a small child, staring into it, expecting something to stare back.
Looking, hiding, and not looking again until dawn,
the dark turns coats into monsters,
lamps into heads,
shadows into creatures-
The Monster in the closet, forever watching where I slept.
For years, it plagued me--

Until one night, as I turned off the light in my closet, and turned to look at my bed-
and I saw where I might've been sleeping, had I gone to bed minutes earlier,
as I looked at my room, standing in the dark, creeping in the shadows,
Waiting,
I realized that I had become The Monster in the closet.
It had always been me, in there, waiting.

I've never feared a dark room or pitch black staircase since.

It's become evident that the only monster in my room
Is me.