By Annaliese Kunst
Everyone’s boogeyman is different—some linger in the closet, shadows warping around them, eyes glistening, and teeth sharpened for a bite. Others loom over twin-size beds with dinosaur sheets, their fur matted and bright blue, laughter roaring and echoing in the dark. All boogeymen terrify children and feast upon their fear.
My boogeyman was my mother.
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Boogeymen like to keep children confined to their bedrooms at night, so they are easy to devour—and my mother followed this rule religiously. Looming over me—crackling eyes and furrowed brows and anger etch-a-sketched onto features that I was always told resembled mine—my mother would put me to bed and remind me of the nightly rule: I was not allowed to leave my bedroom.
My older brothers were never subjected to this rule, just me, my mother’s youngest and eldest daughter. With a wicked laugh, my mother once told me the reason why was because when I got up to drink water from the bathroom, my five-year-old feet walked too loud.
While she sat on the couch downstairs in the living room, curled up with the blanket my busia knit for my father when he was a kid, I would lay wide awake in my bed. Seasonal allergies and a postnasal drip left my throat dry and begging for water; I was afraid to even cough because of the sound it made and constantly aware of the darkness looming and waiting to bite if I opened my bedroom door. Sharp knives stabbed and pressed against my bladder, giving me an early taste of what menstruation would feel like and burdening me with the knowledge that if I wet the bed I would be humiliated and beaten.
I never wet the bed.
—
Boogeymen use their size to their advantage. Large fingers press down on tiny windpipes, pleased with how they squirm as the shadows engulf them.
My mother once held me down on the kitchen floor, cool tile pressing against my head, my skull digging into the ground. Her wedding ring from her now ex-husband burned into my cheek, reminding me of the protection I lost.
In her other hand, she held a steak knife. The light caught in the blade, and I didn’t see a guardian angel or my dad coming to rescue me or my brothers coming to defend me—I just saw the bags under my eyes and the way the baby fat on my cheeks pooled around my mother’s wedding band.
—
Boogeymen manipulate and do whatever they can to gain the higher ground, to get the result they desire. My mother always was good at doing this with a smile on her face, canines sharpened to a point, ready to rip out and shred my veins.
The house continued to exist around me, and I could not hear what my brother asked me. I only heard my mother telling me I couldn’t leave the room while I shoved my phone under my scarred thigh.
When she was distracted, I dialed my dad, confident he would be the one to slay my monster and turn on a night-light. I confessed to him my deepest, darkest fear from the pit of my stomach: “I think Mom’s going to kill me.”
But he left me in that house, in the darkness with no lights on and a monster in the closet. As I laid down to sleep that night, grateful for the millionth time in my life that I did not easily bruise, my mother smiled and told me that she only hit me because she wanted someone to blame.
I was my mother’s favorite scapegoat when I was 14.
—
Very accomplished boogeymen have multiple victims, multiple children to feed off. My mother worked hard to be at the top of the pyramid, high marks in every course. Her photo under was starting to accumulate dust from having stayed there for so long.
My mother was watching a movie with me—never my choice, but simply always something she manipulated and guilt-tripped me into doing with her. A daughter was nothing if not a doll to grab and play with when she got bored.
Plot points floated over my head, closed-captions blurred together, and my mother turned to me with a deadpan look on her face, devoid of emotion, a blank slate to sketch upon. There was no quirk of the brow or lifted corner of her lips as she told me, “I used to hit your dad.”
I was 17 and alone. My brothers had both moved out. My father had always been afraid of her. I am her last meal, and she will feast until all that is left of me is dust and cobwebs.
—
Boogeymen work best when you are held within their grasp, no escape possible. If you escape, they could lose their hold on you. But freedom will never come easy.
My mother made a grave mistake—she let me go to college. I escaped to another state and found freedom. Friends became family and home became a distant memory. Healing was possible, but at the same time, it wasn’t.
In the shadows of every room my mother lingered, sharp teeth glistening. Every childhood story my new friends shared reminded me of a story where I suffered. Suddenly, every room, every word, every person, every memory became a reminder of my mother, and I was forced to realize that I would never truly be free.
The semester ended and my mother picked me up. Long-distance phone calls that ended in screams echoed within my mind. Fear settled back in my gut like a lost friend and a part of me felt whole, but still incomplete.
That winter break was the worst month of my life.
There were constant as I tested out independence and standing up for myself. I was shamed and put down, degraded and insulted, all because I learned that boogeymen weren’t supposed to be mothers. Every flinch made my mother angrier, and every sob guaranteed a raised hand.
The light at the end of the hallway became dimmer, but something kept it glittering like a shooting star; closing my eyes tight, I wished for freedom. I wished for a home.
I wished for love.
—
Boogeymen are not invincible, despite what I believed. It takes time, courage, and the right people to know how to defeat them. And they will try to keep their hold on you.
My mother threw apology after apology at me, always undercutting them with insults or excuses, and always taking them back a month later. Remorse was never natural for her.
I went back to college. I found the space to breathe and the time to think. My friends told me how to vanquish her, but we all knew it was something I ultimately had to do alone. They guided me to the answer, but I was afraid to turn on the light after living in darkness for so long.
Then My Love entered my life, taking the shape of a person with radiant eyes and a patient nature. They were gentle and my everything; I was eclipsed from love my whole life and now it lay within my arms—and I was determined to never let my boogeyman find it.
I remember the quiver in my mother’s voice as I called and told her I was never going to speak to her again, that she no longer had a daughter, and that I was no longer afraid. The sun shined bright on me, and for the first time, she was starving and I was full.
Sometimes darkness takes over again. Sometimes the only light I have is My Love holding a flashlight, but there are days where the sun never sets and shadows run from me. My boogeyman is dead to me, and when the days are longer, memories stronger, and the present feels like it is melting around me, all I have to do is look at the ring on my left hand, gold band shining like the sun as it rises over a new dawn.
