Flowered sheets betrothed upon adolescent layers that smell like the new dawns of early summer air. I remember my trembling body, stiffly remaining on my bed, trying to remember why I was even crying. Air wafts in crisply and slowly as the door creaks open, and my parents' faces illuminate in the dusky hallway.  I would descend down from the comforting comforters and cling on to the leg of my mom, hallow and dryly my voice would ring out, “mama, mama, there’s a monster under the bed.”

her gentle hand would glide over my cheek, her knuckles softly pushing away the salty tears that licked my skin. My body would melt over, soften like a stick of butter, her reassuring voice whispering in my ears, and somewhere deep down I knew that I was safe.

but now as I lay on those same flowered sheets, that smell just isn’t the same. The air stays stagnant and my mattress lay stiff as a board, old and creaky, memories of the past lay somewhere beneath their woodworks. Instead of clutching stuffed animals, I hold my own raw flesh and bones of my legs and pull them close to my chest, their boney compartments squeeze against my rib cage.

glancing over my shoulder I see my bathroom mirror, it mimics and mocks me. It tends to remind me of everything that I am not, the person that I see frowns back in disappointment. Even though I don't know who she is, by the way her auburn brown eyes skeptically criticized me, I knew her morals to be true.

thoughts dash through my mind. How could I change? My brain calculates the new diets, the hair treatments, the clothing, but in the end the utter possibilities of  nothingness is what echoed off the walls of my bedroom. 

I squeeze my legs closer to my chest, this heavy feeling grows in my throat, in my ribs, and all around. The thoughts continue, consuming my hollow chamber with every new possibility, ringing, shouting, and pounding on my everlasting temples. 

Suddenly I don't feel old anymore. I am that same little girl, trembling and crying on her flower bed sheets, longing for the warm hand of another to caress her battered and beaten heart. I sit shaking on my bed, hoping and praying for someone to come and open the door. Shuddering with only the warmth of my old battered comforters, my voice croaks out in the hopes she was standing readily outside the door, “mama, mama, there’s a monster in my head.”