Eliza and Her Monsters

by Francesca Zappia

Morning is the devil’s time.

There is a small monster in my brain that controls my doubt. The doubt itself is a stupid thing, without sense or feeling, blind and straining at the end of a long chain. The monster, though, is smart. It’s always watching, and when I am completely sure of myself, it unchains the doubt and lets it run wild. Even when I know it’s coming, I can’t stop it.

Love the illustrative descriptions of what its like to deal with anxiety.

I like these. It’s like with Monstrous Sea. That’s about feeling like you’re in the wrong place, and fighting forces you can’t stop, and how there are monsters out in the world, but usually the worst monsters live inside us.

The things you care most about are the ones that leave the biggest holes.

Broken people don’t hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten.

I’m so tired. I’m tired of anxiety that twists my stomach so hard I can’t move the rest of my body. Tired of constant vigilance. Tired of wanting to do something about myself, but always taking the easy way out.

Like life, what gives a story its meaning is the fact that it ends. Our stories have lives of their own—and it’s up to us to make them mean something.

He had found her in a constellation.