Jealousy is a Monster

Jealousy is a monster.

Not the kind from television.

Not a demon or a person you describe as a monster

Because they're so horrible.

A good, old fashioned, horror story.

It hides beneath your bed, waiting

Surrounding you in the dark,

Turning bed sheets into a body bag.

It lurks in the shadows,

And waits until your thoughts are vulnerable.

Waits until self doubt starts To bubble.

Confidence fizzles down To little more than flicker.

Then… It attacks.

Just like the movies. Like a jump scare you saw coming a mile away.

But still got caught

If jealousy had a body it would be a snake,

Coiling around your mind,

Squeezing tighter and tighter with each moment.

It is The Boogeyman of the emotional world.

It is created by fear and feeds on insecurity and low esteem.

You’ve seen those movies where the monster feeds off of you,

Leaving you feeling weak, defeated, and empty?

That’s what this is.

That's the brand of monster jealousy is.

It starts as nothing to look at,

A small blip in an otherwise normal emotional range.

Then suddenly you’re up all night,

You have no appetite. You’re exhausted and upset.

Everything seems like the world has been inverted,

And you're the only one who feels the wrongness of the day.

It makes you irritable.

Angry where a joke would have made you laugh.

Crying where you normally would have smiled.

“What's wrong with you today?”, You’ll be asked.

And you don't know.

You're not the jealous type, remember.

This is new and terrifying and jealousy is not in your radar of emotions to identify.

You brush it off again.

“Nothing is wrong i'm just a bit grumpy”

But you know that's a lie.

Grumpy is familiar. Grumpy is hungry with an attitude

And you haven't wanted to eat in days.

You don't have a name for jealousy when it first starts to latch on,

But there's a deep hole and a ball in your stomach at the same time,

Your throat is tight without you meaning it to be

Your heart is heavy and you constantly feel about to cry.

This is the point in the movie where the woman being

Held hostage in her own home by the monster feels the onset of dread.

She is tired of fighting. She doesn't want to eat or sleep.

But she doesn't leave her bed either.

It looks like depression but that is a different monster.

They’re cousins.

Depression doesn’t leave space for all these other emotions though.

You know that one, it's an emptiness that fills everything.

Jealousy is a coal fire burning deep underground.

No, not in that passion kind of way.

But in that slowly roatsing away your joy kind of way.

It boils up into anger and irritation and sadness and self hate.

Jealousy is the boogeyman in the closet of your mind,

Turning your body into a haunted house you never signed up to stay in.