A/N: Right, you will, in all probability, think I’m half-mad for writing this, let alone posting it on the internet…but hey, what can I say? I can't control what spills from my mind, leaks through my fingertips and is translated through the keyboard… If you were wondering, which I doubt you were, ‘4AM’ by our lady peace inspired me. Please don’t assume that I have, at long last, lost my remaining marbles…I haven’t (I don’t think)…well, enjoy my senseless ramblings…no actual plot, BTW…

Monsters in my head

My father was a monster, as Dark and sinister as creation would permit. He lurked in the dimmest corners of my mind, coiling his vilification around my psyche like vines, wringing until I thought I would scream.

His verbal abuse, how ever, was readily met with derisive retorts and bitingly mordant replies; I was always prepared for altercation. Over the years, I became an exceptional actress, pretending it didn’t damage my sense of worth as his criticism progressively increased in intensity. This, of course, was merely an attempt to keep him from anything real.

He was quite a sight to behold when angry. His beady coal like eyes would smolder with unsuppressed vindictiveness, his pupils, barely discernible from the bands of black that enclosed them, would dilate with an abhorrent eagerness to bequeath hurt. His mouth would curl upwards into a malicious smirk and he would open it to reveal a bottomless pit of livid diatribe.

It probably would have been easier to bear if he was at least a bit drunk when he did it.

My mother was my savior, and at the same time she was my downfall. She was kind and sweet with a disarming smile and soft eyes that sparkled in a way that mine never could. She was warmth embodied and I could bask in the tender glow she offered me. To the world around us, outside my family’s little bubble of misery, she made my father out to be a strong, but kind natured man deep down. She said he was our protector.

She was delusional, and the world believed her.

My father would beat me black and blue and she would smile and laugh and ask me how my day at school was while simultaneously pressing an icepack to the forming bruise on my cheek. I guess I still blame the valium.

On the day my father took things too far, physically pushing me down the stairs, bellowing that I was worthless, as my mother was surveying from the sidelines. He used me as a punching bag and told me I was his burden while my own mother turned the other cheek. She knew he would kill us both sooner or later. But my mother, bless her gentle soul, would love him until the very end…

And for my mother, when they asked me how I sustained so many injuries in the emergency room, I told them I caused them myself in a fit of self-hatred. They thought that the demons in my head had driven me to become insane; suicidal.

Well, It wasn’t all that far from the truth anyway…