My Guardian Terrorizer

Even in death, he has found a way to encompass my entire world. I don't think I function properly anymore. Not that I ever could—if there will forever be creaks and shadows, or the howling of night's air.

You think I am difficult, detached and neurotic at times? You ask me why I whisper curses to the loud drunks, why I'm jittery when the sun goes down, why I give steely glances to strangers who give me enough reason to, a reason you cannot possibly comprehend. Nor can I, yet I feign to. You ask me why I cannot sleep, regardless of whether the door is locked or open.

It's because I could have an infinity of dead bolts on any door and never be safe. I could push steel furniture in front of that hopeless, fragile, useless door. Just as I once balanced childhood objects within my reach so that they would topple to alert me of his coming; hockey stick he taught me how to hold, stuffed animal he bought for me at the hospital. The strongest of metals and the most fragile figurines could not save me then or now. You'd watch me act on these habits with eyes of no understanding, and worse, you would start to fear me. To see me how I was, to know the itches in my brain used to be worse. Now at least they can be scratched.

He buzzes in my mind and can never be silenced. He spins webs and spits nests in the reservoirs of my memory, a constant biting at the particularly bloody pieces.

His initial bite never leaves me. I could show you how I used to hide a hunting knife under my pillow, the one the monster himself used to pick his gritting teeth with. A clenching of the jaw, the scraping of ground down canines, those were the signs he was angered, when he felt his hold on you weaken. A tobacco-stained smile meant he was reveling in his control over those he could, and he could control everyone for all I knew. That must be why I was forced to keep the family burdens to my little mind alone, why Mother didn’t tell the police or neighbors, why no one heard me whisper, “Help,” through a crack in my window whenever there were loud threats and bashings outside my door. It was because he had dominance over the very air I whispered into.

He is the infiltrator of my dreams, the reason for my nightmares, and worse is that he is still seen in every man I see when awake. He finds himself in the soft caress on my back that I jump away from. One word in a book can leave me staring at the pages, yet not reading, for minutes. The neighborhood children screaming terrifies me the most. I always hush all workings and wait for the laughter or soothing mother to follow. Now that I know those things exist after a scream from a child.

The charm of small solaces that don’t trouble others have long been thrown away as anything else but ugly to me. The safety of a soft blanket, the warmth from a crackling fire, the sip of a cold beer, the sound of soft rain on a roof, and the humming of a country song is the antithesis of soothing for me.

You wonder why fireworks startle me, why hugs disconcert me, why taps on glass make me jump, why door creaks silence me while my heart races to that fast, familiar beat.

Because they are all him, in a million different forms in countless new and terrifying ways. He is everyone, including my friends…including you. Everybody, everything, is my guardian terrorizer. And I cannot run or cry or hide like I used to, like I wanted to. I have to smile, shake hands, make love, play, sing to, dance with, listen to, kiss my terrorizer, constantly. How automatic a different reaction can become. When will I be able to let these triggers go? I must find a way to release safely. I must scream as many times as possible, those dusty raw screams that I couldn’t ever set free in the past. I need to tell, like I never could. I never thought I would need to when it was all over. Those screams and that telling, right now they are all I need, to hollow myself out so I can fill myself with something better than this constant urge to survive a ghost.