Come here, darlin,
And I'll tell ya a tale,
About the real monsters in the room.

See, it's not about beasties or bloodsucking,
Not about haunting or grave-rising.
It's about being afraid
Of mistakes we've made
Of the things inside
We're so desperate to hide.

We make up these tales, you know,
For all those worries to have someplace to go,
Skin for parchment and bloody ink
And a wine too bitter to drink.
It's in those pages that we send
All the urges we wish would end.

A longing for life, for love, for lust,
A fear and rage and lack of trust,
The wounds in hearts that make men wild,
That we use to counsole a child.

We make masks for monsters, dear,
To protect ourselves from all we fear.
Because we have no other way
No other words to convey
The ugly inside us that we force on others
And the violation forced on ourselves.
We make masks of monsters, love,
Because if we didn't put them in books,
If we didn't give them big mouths with teeth and claws and mean looks,
We'd have to see under those masks and know
It's inside where the real horrors grow.

And here's the worst part
Nightmares might not be real but the monsters are
And they have no fear of daylight.

This isn't a story
This isn't some place for dreams
Or rhyme schemes

This is eyes open
Mouth shut

Reality.

And here's the story I have to tell about monsters

My monster had a name
And I loved him
More than I ever loved me.
And maybe he needed me
But he needed to own me more.
We never saw each other coming,
and by the time I cared enough to look what I'd done, what we'd done
My monster
Had made a monster of me.

And I let him.

My monster
Was like a speeder crash.
Inevitable.
He was a speeder and I was a driver who lost control.
I saw the lights and no matter what I did or how hard I screamed...it happened.
And no one blames the car —
they blame the driver.
And sometimes they shouldn't.

But sometimes

They should.

That's what monsters are, love.
Not ghosts or ghouls, just
Us.
And our choices.

Take it straight from the mouth of one.