Some of those things they kept from you a good long while. They distracted you with shining ornaments, bendable action figures, flickering screens, dolls with shiny blond hair that drive bright pink cars to the plastic mall.
Some of those things they called evil, exorcised them from you with complicated rituals involving rulers and acts of public humiliation.
Some of those things you hid from the world, like dirty little secrets, like underwear skid marks in the locker room. You kept them out of sight, didn’t you? You hid them under your pillow, in the back of your closet, beneath loose floorboards.
Desperate for a distraction, so you could make your getaway, you pointed an accusing finger at others. You pretended you were like everybody else, who was pretending to be like everybody else.
Some of those things you hid from yourself. You were the easiest of all to fool, never asking yourself too many questions that were difficult to answer. Like ancient remains, you buried those things under manicured lawns, detached housing. For years, your neighbours never even suspected the existence of the maniac in the attic, all those vaults and chambers and passageways hidden beneath the easy-clean surfaces.
Some of those things, they come to you now uninvited. They flutter like great, dark moths about your porch light. They slam themselves against your window on winter nights. They hide themselves in the spaces between the words of poems and songs and love letters you meant to burn. They dress themselves as angels and as demons. They communicate with you in riddles, in backwards writing, in the logic of dreams.
They are shadow, and they are light. They drop dead birds and windfall apples at your feet. They force you to the ground so you can weep in grief, or make angels in the snow. They are viruses and mermaids swimming in your blood. They are travel plans gone awry, unexpected turns of event. They call you up in the middle of the night, and ask if they can come over. They take the form of approaching storms, receding trains, of headlights in the snow. They cause you to wake up laughing and crying. They make you giddy and dizzy and scared.
Some of those things that make you major can turn you all around and upside down. They are the reason you should stick around as long as you can. Just wait and see.
