an overflow of words

When I first moved in to Tampines, my parents gave me my own room and made me sleep alone, for the very first time in my life. And they bought me a bed. I was terrified, because I always slept with my ahma and I slept on a mattress, because I was really fucking terrified of monsters. Monsters can't hide under mattresses, they'll be squashed. So I've always thought monsters dwell underneath beds and at night, they'll come out and attack you.

So it was my first night sleeping alone. On a bed. With an empty space on the bottom. I checked underneath my bed to make sure that there are no monsters. Always. Then I prayed for safety and to be alive the next day and sure enough, I always escaped unscathed. This continued until secondary two. Then I stopped checking for monsters under my bed.

Because I realized the monsters are inside of me, not outside.