My Monster

I'm feeling particularly sad today
I let my monster out
She screamed and raged and stomped around
Feeling quite justified in her exasperation.

What should I feed her?
When I starve her she gets quiet,
but she's always there.
Tethered in the basement, growling.

She doesn't know where she came from,
she just is.
She wants to be heard,
She wants to be loved
She wants to be seen.
If she was heard and loved and seen
she would probably settle down
For a nice big lick
And a loud purr
And a long nap.

It's dark in the basement and
sometimes it's been so long since she's been let out
that when a crack of light comes in
she goes bonkers,
Pulling at the wall til the chain breaks
And she runs around and howls
and howls and scratches things.

She knocks over lamps and breaks door jams,
and behaves in a way that most people
DO
NOT
LIKE.

She thinks she could behave nicely
Under the right circumstances.
I'm wondering if I should have her euthanized.
She's dangerous but she doesn't think that she is.

What should I do?
Let her out with a promise of good behavior?
Or shoot her with a tranquilizing gun
and then give her a permanent sleep?

She can be a very nice monster.
But even monsters on their best behavior
Have been known to breathe fire on the guests
and vaporize them in an instant.

Monsters sometimes burst on the scene
and trample everyone in their path.
They just don't do well in polite company.
No one wants her here.
If she finds out,
she'll terrorize the village in a frenzy again.
If she finds out they don't like her
she'll want to eat them.

I'm going to send her down the path
where there's a big sign that says,  
"This way to the Party! Monsters Welcome!"

When she sees the sign she'll run toward it,
so excited that she's been invited to a party.

There's a cliff behind the sign which she can't see.

When she runs for the party,
she'll fall down and down and down in the dark crevass.

At first she'll be confused.
Where's the party hats?
Where's the cake?
It's dark in here.

Dark, dark, dark.

Eventually she'll realize there's no party.
She might cry.
She might get mad.
She might roar.
She might want to eat everybody.
She might start thinking,
when I get to that party
I'm going to eat all the guests.

But she's still falling and falling in the dark.
At lightning speed.
She can't see anything.
All she can feel is the rush
of cold, dark air, and the feeling of falling.

Then she'll think,
"I'm alone. Where is everybody?"
And she'll start to cry.

When monsters cry you have to get out of the way.
Their tears are as big as swimming pools
and their snot is indescribably sticky and voluminous.
A crying monster makes a terrible mess.
It's a good thing mine is falling down a dark crevass
because there's no hankie big enough for all the tears and snot.

Her heart will pound
and she'll cry and cry until she's shaking with sobs.
First she'll be mad and she'll say,
"Where's the party? They lied to me!"
But then she'll say,
"Why did everyone ditch me? I'm alone again!"
And she'll keep falling.
Falling falling falling.
There's no bottom to the monster crevass.
It's just an open crack in the universe.
Finally she cries herself to sleep.
She sleeps and falls and falls,
head over heels,
down the black crevass.

When she wakes up she's lying
on warm sand by the ocean.
And she's not a monster anymore,
she's just a person who has holes in her soul,
trying to figure out this
thing
called
life.