Danielle Williams – Goodnight and Goodbye

Goodnight and Goodbye

For all of our years of being so close to one another, I am not sad to say that I am happy to see you go.  Your endless torcher has made my life a living hell, and I look forward to having a life without you constantly breathing down my back and lurking around my bedroom.  I never understood how you were able to walk around without making even the slightest of noises considering how large you were.  It drove me crazy hearing you moving things around in the closet one minute, and the next you would be sitting behind my back on the bed.  I always knew when you were near because I would feel the blankets slightly being pressed into as they slowly creeped up to me, which always gave me shivers.  

You spent way too much time in the closet with the lights off, doing God knows what.  Hopefully nothing dirty.  I don’t want to find anything with a slimy consistency on any of my clothes.  Sometimes, I would even watch you come out of my closet as you slowly wrapped your hand around the doorframe with your long spidery fingers and perfectly pointed manicured nails.  It was almost as if you were trying to seduce me, but it creeped the heck out of me more than anything, especially because you weren’t the prettiest looking thing.

Your eyes were a yellow colour that I swear glowed in the dark.  I always knew where you were in a dark room because of them.  Not only was the colour disturbing, but the size of your eyes were pretty abnormal considering it looked like you struggled to shut your eyelids over them.  

Your figure however, was a whole different story.  You were far from the stick thin figure of a model and much closer to that of a hippo.  I think the reason that you smelt so bad was from the dirt and moistness under your many rolls of fat, but you’re breath could definitely challenge that statement. The fact that you didn’t shave was also quite horrifying to see because you did not have much of any hair, other than your legs and a few clumps on top of your freckled head.

My mom always told me to ignore you when you when I called her in the night complaining that you were keeping me up, but you made it impossible.  You would laugh and tease me when I turned the lights off and run to the bed to avoid being grabbed by anything else in the room, even though I knew you were the only one.  

I’m not sure when, or how our relationship started to change but over time, I knew you had less of an influence over me. Yes, I still knew you were around but somehow, it mattered less and less that you existed and I felt more indifferent to your presence. Now that I look back on our history, I believe this was the beginning of the end for you and me. After the many years of knowing you, your presence around my room started to matter less and I began to think of you as more of a distraction than an enemy. You started to drop by my house at night, only on occasion, but would never stay long.  Finally I made my mind up that you would no longer have any influence over me and frankly, if you came to my room I would simply ignore you. I no longer gave you any power over me physically or mentally. You were a nobody and I could stand up to you anytime I wanted.

My mom is so proud of me for telling you off.  Especially because I stopped peeing the bed once I did.  Mom says it’s because I’m fourteen now and fourteen year olds aren’t afraid of the Boogie Man.