The Screaming Girl Under the Bed Isn’t Me Anymore
She used to curl where the shadows spit,
breathing dust and clenched fists and spit.
She’d cry into torn blankets and bruise her knees,
and pray the monsters would finally see.
That girl was me–not long ago,
sobbing lullabies no one should know.
I screamed into springs that cut like wire,
and sang my panic to flickering fire.
But I crawled out one night–slow and sore,
and left her there on the dirty floor.
She never moved, just blinked once back,
then wrapped herself in grief and black.
The screaming girl under the bed isn’t me anymore.
She grew claws while I reached for the door.
She stopped crying. She started to grin–
now she guards the dark I used to live in.
And she growls when I stand too near,
like she remembers every year.
She doesn’t speak, but I know her sound,
a low hiss that sticks to the ground.
I hear it now when I smile too wide,
and feel it crawl just under my pride.
I used to flinch when the lights went dead.
Now she laughs beneath my bed.
She says, “Run, run, you earned your wings–
but I built a throne from broken things.”
The screaming girl under the bed has changed.
Her voice is rough, her limbs deranged.
She doesn’t beg, she doesn’t pray–
she just watches.
And waits for me to stay.
Last night I dropped a sock too close,
and felt her fingers, chilled like ghosts.
She tugged once soft, then let it go.
Now I sleep with one eye open tight,
and her breath curls through the floor each night.
She doesn’t want revenge or tears–
she wants me gone.
She wants the years.
The screaming girl under the bed is done with fear.
She sharpened pain into something clear.
And every time I leave the light,
she shifts, she smiles–
and whispers “Right.”