NEPHART.COM

One morning I woke up
I became a monster

I told my heart 

appearance doesn’t matter
I told my heart
It didn’t listen

The neighbours’ children

They screamed
They grabbed their mothers’ legs
like I was going to snatch the ground from under them

Mothers shaking
Fathers grabbing sticks
bottles
anything sharp
anything that could put a monster down

Windows opened
Stones came
I was just walking

Dogs barked
Of course the dogs barked

Then a drunkard stumbled past me
brushed my arm
didn’t flinch
didn’t run
looked me dead in the eye and said

“Lovely costume”

He walked on
He didn’t know it was permanent
He didn’t know

He was the only one who didn’t know
and he was the only one who wasn’t afraid

I had fangs
I had a horn like a unicorn gone wrong
My face was the kind of face
you don’t want to see first thing in the morning

But my memory intact
My thoughts clear
My heart no vile thing in it

No hunger to loot
No rage to attack
No reason to shoot anyone

I didn’t do anything wrong

I just woke up like this

The police came
The reporters came
The cameras
the lights
the questions
all of them came

Hands up

I raised them

I said I haven’t hurt anyone
I said it honestly

They put me in a cell anyway

Headlines read
Monster loose in the city

Monster

Just for being
Just for the face I woke up in

Doctors came
Scientists came

They poked
and measured
and concluded

Monster virus
Unknown source
Quarantine immediately

Pitch dark

Somewhere no one had to look at me

I yelled
until my chest split open
until there was nothing left of the sound

and then I opened my eyes

And I was just me again
Just me

In my bed
In my skin

Oh

Such a nightmare