The Monster Was Me

TW: Contains themes of domestic violence and emotional abuse

I got in my car,

A quarter past five.

I had to go,

I needed to drive.

Someplace to be,

A place no one knows.

I had to hide,

I had to go.

It was dark when I left,

I watched the sunrise.

Dark reds and pinks,

The sky filled my eyes.

I needed to run away,

A place to hide.

Away from her words,

Afraid, I don't deny.

It happened again,

A repeat, you see.

A scuffle again,

She was mad at me.

As I drove, my thoughts,

They did wander to no end.

How much I messed up,

I couldn't pretend.

That little redhead,

Stood a little shy of five foot three.

Tiny for sure,

A foot shorter than me.

The neighbors did hear,

A scuffle across the yard.

Her voice was loud,

They could not discard.

The cops were called,

A fight because of the tree.

They assumed what happened,

The shovel, you see.

Without getting my side,

They told me this.

I needed to go, or else,

They would cuff my fist.

I got in my car,

I slid behind the wheel.

Not sure what to think,

Not knowing what to feel.

The shifter was sticky,

As I put the car in drive.

A few dollars in my wallet,

A few days to survive.

The clothes on my back,

That's all I got.

I rubbed my face,

I could feel the knot.

Down the road,

About a half past eight.

I started to breathe,

My body did ache.

As the sun rose up high,

The goddess of gold hue.

I spotted the town,

For me, nobody knew.

I crept in my car,

Careful and slow.

Tree-lined streets,

I didn't know.

I passed the houses,

Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green.

Not much here,

Not much to be seen.

If I would have blinked,

I would have missed it.

In the middle of town,

The diner, there sit.

I needed to stop anyway,

The car needed gas.

My belly did grumble,

Begging food not to pass.

The bell on the door,

The diner did declare.

In the opening of the door,

A stranger is standing there.

I looked at my watch,

It was half past ten.

I looked at the bar,

The empty seat on the end.

I tried to move quickly,

I shuffled my feet.

I was in a hurry to sit,

All eyes were on me.

The waitress was short,

Her blond hair was a bit in the way.

With pen in her hand,

She started to say.

"Whatcha need, Hun?

You new around here?"

But then, in a hush,

She decided to stare.

As fast as she hushed,

People turned around.

I was trying to hide,

My eyes stared at the ground.

I mumbled my order,

Avoiding eye contact.

Afraid of the question,

"What was that?"

I gave her my order,

A cheeseburger and fries.

Trying to keep her from seeing,

The shiner, there, around my eye.

I was a stranger,

In this little town that be.

I must be a strange sight,

The way they stared at me.

She set down a plate,

A burger and fries that overflowed.

She's trying to make small talk,

But I didn't want her to know.

She left me alone,

So I could eat.

She said it was nice,

A stranger to meet.

I looked out the window,

The sun did glare.

Everyone did leave,

The diner was bare.

The waitress came back,

Sliding a slice of pie my way.

"Tell me what happened,"

She started to say.

"It's safe here,

There's now no one inside.

Tell me what happened,

The shiner on your eye."

I started to eat the pie,

The cream melted in my mouth.

I started to share,

How the shiner came about.

She leaned real close, listening,

Words not to miss.

"Well, it happened this way,

It happened like this."

"I love my wife,

Her fiery red hair and eyes.

That little redhead is beautiful,

Known her, most our lives."

"Truth be known,

She scares me a little.

Deep inside,

A lion's roar in the middle."

"Please do not judge,

The story that I share.

But here is what happened,

How I did get this shiner here."

I paused a little bit,

Trying to remember the tale,

Afraid to share,

"Please, don't tell."

"She didn't know I was trimming,

The tree behind our home.

She thought she was there,

Herself, home all alone."

"I suppose I scared it,

The scream was real loud.

I jumped; that scream scared me,

I fell down on the ground."

"Standing on the ladder,

On the top rung.

I startled the cat,

That's how it begun."

"You see, to get up high,

I had to give it a climb.

I had one more branch,

To cut this time."

"When I fell off the ladder,

I did hit my head.

I missed the rake,

Landing on the shovel instead."

"I hit so hard,

I bounced off the dirt.

I must have passed out,

How hard it hurt."

"There I lay,

Under the tree.

Covered in sticky mud,

It was all over me."

"This is the hard part,

I still want to blush.

When I came to,

The backyard was a hush."

"With the darkness of night,

Stars, all that I can see.

But the mud that had covered,

Made a monster out of me."

"As I came through the back door,

There, sitting on the couch.

I startled my wife,

She thought that I was out."

"I was covered in mud,

My hair full of leaves.

Covered head to toe,

My eyes, she only sees."

"She saw the shovel,

I had brought it in.

Screamed real loud,

That's where it began."

I slide the plate back,

Pausing to clear my mind.

Playing the scene back,

All of it, in rewind.

"She screamed so loud,

The neighbors called the cops.

The neighbors heard the banging,

Of my wife throwing her flip flops."

"The mud in my mouth,

I tried to say it was me somehow,

But it was hard to speak,

My voice sounded like a growl."

"My wife screamed and yelled,

Telling me to get out of there.

Quite the temper she has,

A little tiny thing with fiery red hair."

"I tried to explain, it was me,

To help her figure out.

Then she threw a cup,

Knocked me right out."

"With a thud, I lay,

There on the floor.

Next thing I knew,

Cops at the door."

"As I lay on the floor,

The shovel at my side.

The cops grabbed real quick,

Drug me outside."

"They thought it was a fight,

That is what they reported to me.

But they didn't care to know,

I wasn't a monster, you see."

"I'm afraid to go home,

I'm so scared of my wife.

All I can say,

It's been a night."

"The shiner came to be,

Because I scared the cat.

That is what happened,

The shiner and that."

The waitress stuffed a giggle,

Talking for me to hear.

"You don't have to go home,

But you can't stay here."

"You need to clean up,

You can't be looking like that.

Make up a story,

That doesn't start with a cat."

"If you told that story,

How the shiner came to be.

People won't know what to think,

Or what to believe."

"Pretend you're a superhero,

Wearing a purple cape.

But don't tell anyone about the cat,

For goodness sake."

The waitress walked away,

The laughter I could hear.

It's time for me to go,

I gotta get out of here.

I walked out of the diner,

Leaving money there to pay.

Looking around to see,

Thinking what the waitress did say.

I stood at my car,

Thinking about what to do.

Head to toe in dried mud,

Leaves in my shoe.

A noise in my pocket,

A text with a ding.

A message from my wife,

A message to read.

"Hey, my handsome husband,

Where did you go?

Will you be home?

I'd like to know."

"I have to tell you what happened,

The monster in the house.

But hurry home when you can,

I love you, my spouse."

I slid back into the car,

Put the shifter into drive.

I looked in the mirror,

The shiner around my eye.

I drove down the street,

I passed a house that was green.

A strange thought occurred,

She didn't know the monster was me.