Hide (and go seek)

One, two, three…
You tried to be quiet at first. You navigated the universe on tiptoes, alone but for your shadow who was afraid of the dark, and so you crept around the world mostly alone. I counted with my eyes closed, listening for your steps, listening for every syncopating heartbeat and slowed step before you opened a new door. But I’d memorized the doors you were too afraid to open - the ones with the squeaky hinges and the ones that slammed shut - the one to the kitchen and the one to Dad’s office, the yellow door of your bedroom and the one that led outside. You were afraid that I’d hear and know where you were, but you knew I knew where you would and wouldn’t be. You never hid where you weren’t allowed to go, never left the house without Mom’s permission, you often studied while you waited for me to catch up.

Four, five, six…
You never got over your fear of opening squeaky doors. But one day you discovered that there were other ways out: you opened the skylight in the kitchen and climbed onto the roof, you shimmied down the rain pipe and stepped out into the world, left the house for the first time without telling Mom. I panned through the stars of the Milky Way, peeled back the waves of all seven seas, but you were nowhere to be found: all I could find were footprints, glowing in the sky.

Seven, eight, nine…
You never, ever hid underneath the bed. You said there were monsters. And when I forced you to get your teddy bear from under there once, you cried and made Dad check for monsters twice. He said the coast was clear and left the room, and you held your teddy bear in your arms and cried some more. What’s wrong? I remember asking you, and you, still under that bed that you hated so much, told me, so calmly that it made me shiver: The monster’s down here, that’s what’s wrong. So then I told you to get out so I could check again, and you scrambled out obediently and sat watching me. I looked under the bed knowing there’d be nothing, and reported my finds to you: cobwebs and an old silver spoon. You looked at me as if you couldn’t believe my unintelligence. Of course it’s not there anymore!

10, 11, 12…
As you grew older, the world grew smaller and became, in a way, one big bed that you were hiding under. Is that why you hated everything so much? Being left alone in the dark with your monsters - they were the  only things as significant as you were.

13, 14, 15…
You tried to be quiet at first, but you soon grew careless. You smoked in your room and in the shower, you ran away with boys. I remember the smoke from your cigarettes, waltzing eerily into the stars, casting hazy, mottled veils across the constellations. I remember standing at the mouth of a tunnel watching you waving your arms and laughing drunkenly at me from the other end. Your howls of laughter echoed through the stone, and by the time they reached my ears, they sounded more like sobs than giggles.

16, 17, 18…
We were slow and insignificant while you grew iridescent and beautiful, we were grainy seeds of maggot to your broken butterfly. Time was all that halted us from buzzing up into the sky, but it was fear that pinned down your fluttering stained glass wings. All this time you were running, running from yourself, the clock turned once-twice-thrice and Sundays turned to sin-days. The cigarette smoke and all your men were just another pricey couch for you to hide behind.

19, 20, 21…
Do you remember the night I finally found you? I think you were relieved in a way - you knew I’d catch up to you sometime. And you knew I remembered that night when you crawled underneath the bed, you knew your tears from then were justified. You weren’t crying because you were sad, or angry, or afraid. You were crying because you finally understood that those monsters weren’t from underneath the bed, but were inside of you, and only because you were alone could you hear their voices. I know I’m one of those monsters to you in a way, but you were the one who wanted to hide, told me to be “it.”

22, 23, 24...
The Big Dipper glowed silvery grey, trembling, suspended in the sky like a starry noose aiming for your neck.

25.
“Ready or not, here I come.”

Sincerely,
Your Conscience