The monster has a pouch on its stomach, like a kangaroo. Today it pulled a pencil out of the pouch and pointed the eraser at me. It began rubbing the rubber eraser against my neck, behind my ear. The eraser bits, collecting on my shoulder, sapped my energy from me. And with every eraser bit, the monster grew.

Rub. Rub. Rub.

I slowly begin to drain.

I had plans for today, you know! I have friends I want to call. I have groceries to buy, books to read, mountains to hike, beers to taste.

The eraser moves from my neck to my back, down each of my legs.

Rub. Rub. Rub.

I can still move my arms, so I text my friends, canceling that hike, those beers. I cruise down my Facebook feed, watching my friends activities from a far, as the monster rubs the eraser across my shoulder blades.

Rub. Rub. Rub.

Down my arms until it reaches my hands and I collapse on the couch, the monster taking up my now-too-small living room once again. Pokey bits pricking me with each of my breaths. But they’re shallow now, not from fear of being poked, but from the utter loss of all energy, motivation, or anything good. I can barely lift my head off the pillow to see the eraser bit piles of my energy strewed over the floor.

I can’t move. Too much has been erased. But that conscious paralysis sends my brain in to a screaming match between my brain which is trapped in my skull, and my heart trapped in my chest. Both are pounding.

The only thing that stops the pounding is the realization that the monster is writing. His handwriting is neat, annoyingly so, and he writes on a paper the size of my wall, the now worn-down eraser bobbing in the air as he makes his annoyingly neat letters. He is writing a list of my failures. A list of people who don’t love me. A list of pipe dreams.

The monster tapes the paper on the wall facing my now paralyzed head.

Fall, 2017