The Monster Within Me.

I have a large birthmark around my mouth. Like a monster, that birthmark dominates my thoughts and emotions. I am afraid of the gazes of passersby. Every time I walk down the street, those piercing stares. I don't glare back at them, nor do I pretend to be indifferent; I am simply frightened and trembling. Sometimes, I see people whispering while looking at me, or even pointing fingers.
Therefore, once I step out of my house, there is no place I can call safe. I am always side-by-side with the fear of gazes piercing me from all directions. The more the fear grows, the greater the presence of my birthmark becomes. The birthmark dominates my thoughts and emotions.
And so, the existence of this greatly enlarged birthmark swallows up my own existence. This is what it means for the birthmark to 'exist.' More than the surface area of the birthmark on my body, the birthmark that nests in my heart is large and powerful.
By the time I was old enough to understand, the birthmark had become the foundation of my thoughts and emotions. For example, when I meet and talk to someone for the first time, do they look into my eyes, or are their eyes drawn to the birthmark? Do they bring up the birthmark during the conversation? I have developed a habit of judging people by watching their reactions in this way.
That habit is, first and foremost, to protect myself. Are they a person who will cause harm, or not? Are they an enemy or an ally? Thinking about it now, that is not much different from sizing people up. It is a very rude attitude and lacks sincerity. But I had no other way to think of to protect myself while living like that.
Along with the growth of my body, the birthmark nesting in my heart also grows. While the size of the birthmark around my mouth has stopped changing, the one nesting in my heart continues to erode my spirit. What is most frightening is this monster, the birthmark that nests in my heart.
The monster never decays and is always nesting in my heart. Ironically, it is the very existence of people, whom I was so afraid of, that tries to help me defeat that monster. By building relationships with people and spinning the vortex of those relationships, I weaken the monster little by little, as if unraveling threads one by one. Even if I cannot defeat it completely, I can weaken it.
Perhaps as long as I have life, this monster will never decay. Even so, I do not want to end my limited life in a state of being swallowed by the monster. I, too, have many things I want to do and achieve. I will tame the monster. I believe that if I do, I can live a slightly better life than I do now.