hush baby, don't cry
one more day in paradise
Mama's never going to let you fall
Daddy will be here whenever you call
so hush now, baby, and don't say a word
we love you

it's quiet today
we'll nap it away
I feel you stretching around and pouting
hush little girl
You're mine, you're ours
And anything we have to do to get you here
that's nothing...

I'll hold you in my heart for now
I'll hold you in my dreams
Feel helpless that's all I can do
So stay safe where you are in the dark
So warm where you are
Let Mama hold you now
Everything'll be all right

Just stay put one more week, one more month
Let me wait for you.

Again, I feel like a wreck. Saw the docs today for my latest round of tests, I failed the first glucose screen. We expected that, so I'm not really upset. More concerned than upset. I mean, how many of these tests can I fail before they tell me not to have this baby? I'm in the home stretch now. It'll only get easier from this point.

Yesterday I was talking about that first deployment... It was hard, but the rewards were sweet. I learned a lot about myself. I really learned how to be independant for the first time in my life. It's one thing when you're on your own and single, but something else when you're on your own and partnered. I learned to stand on my own feet, make decisions without waffling, and deal with disasters without having the option of asking him to "fix it". I came to be more of the wife that he needed me to be. And in the end, it was even sweeter to be able to join him again.

But in any case, I'm rambling about it now. What I mean to write about tonight, right now, is that after learning how to be that independant and strong person, I have to deal with the fact that I'm not so strong or independant now. I have to lean on others for just about everything in my day. It's hard, especially now that I'm used to standing on my own. I still have moments when I'm convinced that I've failed at being a mother; the Munchkin won't even be born for a few months yet! I guess I should listen to what my friends keep saying. I'll be fine. I need to stop worrying so much and let them help me. That's what they're here for, that's why they care.

another day

another day comes and goes, and I find myself wondering what happened to the time. There's so much I want to do, to get done, and I don't have the energy or the will to do any of it. Get scolded by the docs, and I know they're right. I need to eat more, drink more water, and behave; and I find it harder and harder to do it. Then there's all the rest of the medical shit...

I can't help thinking back to last year. The year before that. WestPac, and the lonely freedom it meant. Getting married, and then putting my Sailor on a greyhound. Letting go. For somebody who doesn't want to give up the slightest bit of control in my personal life, it was a huge adjustment. This was something he wanted, and it was good for him, and I knew that when he enlisted. I just didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to have to face the loneliness. So I took another long look at things and realized that I wanted what was best for him over all else. I sent him off to RTC. I sent him off on that bus. My heart broke, and I told him that I loved him. He makes me happier than I ever thought I could be, and the twist to that is that he is one of the only people in the world that can shatter me. That's what happens when we love someone.

Got married, and everyone was so happy for me. The girls at work said I was finally settled. My family said it. They could see it. Finally, I was settled and knew where I fitted in- in my life, in my heart. And the clients asked me when they heard the news "how's married life?" And I would smile through my bleeding heart and tell them "It's a lot lonelier than I thought it would be."

We knew that there wouldn't be much contact. We knew it would be sporadic and maybe non-existant from time to time, and that phone calls were just about not ever going to happen. It just cost too much, and we didn't have the money. From October to April, there was one time I heard his voice. There were very few weeks without hearing anything at all, though. Email was our friend, we said. I'd hold onto that. In the morning when I woke up, I'd usually find a message waiting for me. Even if it wasn't long, it was something. And when I couldn't sleep because the news haunted my dreams, I could rest just a bit easier knowing that one of us was awake. We never slept at the same time. It helped.

And one day when I went to the airport to see his face again, I cried. Ran through the hall and threw my arms around his neck, like I'd seen on a hundred news clips over the previous months. Cause I wasn't alone, and even though he'd leave again before either of us were ready, I knew I wouldn't really be alone. There's always email, and somewhere we're still awake.

a first date

Fifteen years old and no one home...


She greeted him with a smile, shrinking back a little when she met his eyes. They shone with something she could not put a name to, but that screamed a warning in a small part of her mind. She did not pay attention to it; she had refused to listen for years. Listening caused doubt, caused disturbing images and sounds to bubble up in her memory. Far easier to push it away. Far easier to pretend everything was fine.


He took her hand and led her upstairs. One of her remained behind, staring at a mirror. What would it take to become Alice and slip through to the other side?


They sat on the floor together. Red bunkbeds. Pictures of old sailing ships. A gull cried, but that was only in her mind. Tremors stilled with the iron control that nightly caused fingers to close around a serrated edge and tighten, searching for definable pain. A lump in her throat-- could not swallow, barely breathe.


Cold fingers on warm skin, squirming in her stomach with the impulse of years gone by. Cold like the ice on the windows, on her heart.


He put his hand on her heart then, and smiled, thinking her with him. She smiled, automatic response when no one was there to react.


She heard a voice in her head; her father-master, telling her what she was. Loose women wore makeup and had pierced ears, he told her. By virtue of pale pink polish and tiny gold hoops she screamed, slut. Again it screamed, the voice of one who never slept, never had an instant's ease from the pain. Fingers inside her then, and all she could hear was the screaming. Smile frozen in place as she tried to keep him happy, so he wouldn't go away, wouldn't leave her alone in the cold.


Numb, then. Numb from the effort and from the screaming. Shaking as the bathtub filled. Red of nearly scalded skin scrubbed, trying to free herself from the taint.


Don't hate me, she thought bitterly. Don't leave me. I'll do anything you tell me to. I'll never tell a soul. I'm good at keeping secrets...

just a little slip

I slipped just a little yesterday. Just a bit. It was okay though; barely drew blood or broke skin. I still had my favorite toy stashed away, and it was still what I loved. So quick. So easy. Stung real nice later...

I'm tired, still. Trying to come to grips with the blackness. It has a name again, the docs tell me what they think it is this time around, and based on what I dug up overnight it actually fits. Every one of the signs, symptoms, whatever, I have. And nothing else, and nothing less. And that actually makes me feel a bit better about the fact that they say I'll have this the rest of my life.

How can I do this, periodically, for the rest of my life? Knowing, every time I go down into the pain that it won't really end. It'll just go back to sleep for a bit. Sooner or later I'm going to be facing these endless nights all over again. What kind of life is this going to be when I'm a mother? What kind of life is this going to be for her, if I flake out and lose my marbles? The only path I can see that makes it okay is that right here, right now, I can face up to reality and deal with it. Admit the fact that this Thing exists, and cope with it, and get ready for how I can deal with it for the next twenty or forty years. When my child wakes up and finds me sitting in the sleepless night staring off into my ghosts, I can tell her that it's okay, and I can give her a hug, and I can tell her a story of another time. And maybe this time around it's going to be the mommy putting the child back to bed...

But I'm tired. Very tired. It doesn't end. This is never going to end for good. I just have to deal with it, put the ghosts back to bed, and wait for the dawn

from the past

so this is how it goes...
sara walks in, not so much walking as storming, her wool shawl ripped and dripping in the blood of someone else...
i don’t know how to say it, she admits, finally, as someone puts a drink into her hand. she turns the glass around a few times before setting it back down on the bar regretfully. about five people have taken it upon themselves to lecture us... as if we didn’t already *know* these things already. something that i’m sure you already know-- those with the greatest skills at empathy have the greatest capacity for pain. and they sometimes are the ones who have the greatest capacity for shutting it off completely.. when we were young it was generally known that i was “sensitive”. when we got a little older we recognized it as one of our mother’s main problems. she was too sensitive to the people around her. if someone’s in a strong enough emotion we’ll pick it up and carry it around. no one bothered to teach me how to shield myself from the negative stuff until i was sixteen... after my second breakdown, after i had been cutting for six years for reasons unknown at the time, after the only way i could deal with the maelstrom around me was to become completely numb. so yeah, i guess in some ways i do hold onto my pain too much and refuse to let it go... because it’s *mine*. i own it. i know that it’s mine. i know that it’s not something that someone else is projecting onto me.

the shielding, or lack thereof, also meant that i could pick up on all the abusers’ stuff. that’s what i mean when i say i understood. because i couldn’t *not* understand when there’s that much strong emotion being projected onto you, near you, and your own mind’s gone on vacation... don’t lecture me, please. say what you have to... just don’t lecture me like a naughty child. last night--[she takes a deep breath, then lets it go]-- was something else. flash after flash after flash all night long, as i’m trying to figure out what i need to say, what i want to say, whether i’m even coming back.... not your fault, any of you, just my own stuff. someone warned me recently that soon i’d reach the point where i would either freeze because i’ve said too much, or i’d get through it and come out the other side. i think i sort of got a handle on it around 2am. if i stay, it means that i suddenly have a lot more people in my life, who do care, who will listen to my insane babblings, and who will give me the time of day; caring, basically. all of my life there have been at the most, two at a time, who never stick around more than a week or so. so i honestly don’t know how to deal with twenty, thirty, or more. i don’t know the rules. i go into crisis, and there are a list of numbers. i’ve never had a list of numbers. i have a list of emails. i’ve never had a list of emails. i don’t know the rules anymore. my mind’s been turned 90 degrees from everything i used to know, just at a time when my stress levels are back where they used to be twelve years ago.
and the hardest part is that when it’s just one or two people telling you that you’re not insane for coming through alive you can just sort of nod and smile, and almost believe it but not take it to heart. because they could be wrong, are probably wrong, because two people don’t know...can easily be wrong. when it’s twenty people telling you the same thing over and over again it’s harder to smile, nod, and not believe it. i am finding it harder to keep believing that it was my fault. i’m clinging back to things i *know* i can firmly place on my shoulders.
slept with my new toy under my pillow last night. best sleep i’ve had in ages. better than a stuffie. better than anything else that i can have.[she shrugs]. still ache sometimes to have arms around me, but i can deal with that. you can always deal with the things that you have no choice over.
so you think you can handle the pain? really? it’s started coming back to me in bits and pieces. holding onto the pain because it was mine. it was the only thing that i was sure was mine. it was the only thing that i knew i wasn’t picking up from people around me. and when you’re that insecure, you take what you can get, even when it makes no sense. but when you have one thing to focus on, it becomes your life. it becomes everything to you.
i clutch tightly to my pain, refusing to give it up, because then i have to look at what else might be hiding underneath. it’s the ones who care the most that hurt the most. and i don’t know if i can deal with knowing that. i realized a few months ago that i love my father. that i always have. that nothing he ever put me through could ever change that. i remember so much. i remember more all the time. nothing can change that either....
i remember the first time i had temporary release from it. i was first hospitalized, they didn’t know what they were dealing with, and i started going into withdrawal right there on the ward. pacing the floors like a maniac, tears streaming down my face, rubbing my arms because they hurt so badly. so they called the intern on call that night and shot me full of thorazine. i remember all the pain going away. i remember the panic i should have felt, would have felt, except i couldn’t feel anything and it was different from the other numbness. i remember drifting off to sleep, my brain wrapped in lambswool...
i remember being curled in a ball on the floor of the Cold Room, techs taking my shoes and watch from me, i remember not being able to stop shaking because it hurt so much and it was starting to go away, and being scared because if it stopped hurting there would be nothing left of me. Staring at the ceiling, counting the tiles, letting my breath slow down until i was in trance, my mind unconnected in any way to my body or my soul.
i remember the withdrawal pangs getting so bad i tore through the house, looking for something, anything to tear my flesh open to ease the pain in the only way i knew how, the only way i had gotten used to... used to so much it was a full-blown addiction. there was no one then, no one ever there on that day... and i remember when i finally fell to my knees on the living room floor with a plastic pen in my hand trying to break it in half so i’d have something to use. because i had just enough self-restraint not to go to the kitchen... i remember crying because i had failed. because i had been clean for months, the first time clean in years, and now i had to start all over again with the shaking and crying and the horrible itching under my skin.
i remember the morning i overdosed on my meds, the morning i finally had the strength and the will at once to do it, i remember not feeling anything in my body or my soul... to myself, i was already dead.
this is my pain
i remember my father coming up to me one day in church, demanding to know why i wouldn’t talk to him. i remember his broken eyes. i remember him saying that he loved me. and all i could see was those hands again, when he grabbed my arm to keep me from walking away from him. i remember the bruises his fingers left on my flesh. i felt absolutely nothing when i looked him straight in the eye and said that i wished i could believe he loved me.
and back then, three years, when it broke over my head and inside my soul, when i finally realized that he didn’t love me. that he never had. that i was just something he had been saddled with against his will and that he had been trying his best to destroy me, to get me to destroy myself, so that everyone would pity him and give him things and feel sorry for him and say what a horrible daughter i had been. i remember the pain that ripped me apart.
this is my pain.
i remember stumbling out of bed sometimes every night, to wake him up from where he had fallen asleep in front of the tv, and walk him to bed. i couldn’t have been any older than eight, but it was good practice for when mama couldn’t do anything but cry and scream at the slightest jolt to her shattered nerves. i was ten when i started putting her to bed, counting out the little white and yellow pills, and putting them right into her mouth before holding the water to her lips to swallow. helping to undress her for bed, turning back the covers, starting a pattern that wouldn’t end for nine years. half my life by then, by the time i mentioned it lightly in group therapy to have everyone turn and stare at me like i’d grown a second head.
this is my pain.
i hold it to me. it gives me purpose. it is my past. it is my dowry, my legacy. it shaped me. i will not abandon it, throw it out with the garbage in the morning. my pain is the one thing that i know that i’m not picking up from anyone else. it is the one thing that i know for certain all the time that is mine... i earned it with my own tears. i’ve bled for it. others turned to drugs to ease the pain. to vodka to dull it. i embraced it so it would keep me on my toes. so that it would be something i would always remember. so that it gave me a form when there was nothing else.
under chemical restraints it’s still there. eating a hole through my heart, until they put me so far under i barely blink. i do that to myself sometimes, oversedation, so the pain is even sweeter when it comes back.
i don’t know how to live without it. i don’t know if i can learn. i’m almost positive that i don’t want to learn. it’s mine. it’s the only thing that’s always only mine, when the shielding fails. it’s the light in the window to pull me back to myself. it’s why i carve into my skin for the blood to define it, give it physical form. i’m addicted to it, to my pain.
and you tell me i should give it up?
because it’s all i know right now. ...

there's no one home today
old already, but still young
eating popcorn cause it's easier than food
hiding in the bed cause it's better than school
when a car slows down and turns into the driveway i freeze
there's no escaping
quick, push the book away
pretend that you're doing something
anything
cleaning, you're cleaning and that's okay
it's a good thing
he's never taken you to task for that
but today's different
don't look
don't turn your head
open your eyes
don't see it and it won't exist
i am not here
it's somebody else on the floor
it's somebody else pretending that this isn't happening
it's not me
i'm not here
don't look

somewhere is a candle in the window
it lights my path home, no matter how far i wander
no matter where my ghosts will lead me
no matter how much i See or Feel
the candle is lit for me

warn me of the rocks in my path
warn me of the tempests, the storms
but no cloud can hide this light
i hold to that in the darkness
i shield it tightly in my heart

there is no way back that will not hurt me
today

strike a deal with the demons for my pain
maybe too much maybe not enough...
but it's my choice to go back into the shadows
i'll deal with the consequences when they come
for now, i fade willingly
as i search out my tools once again
always knew i kept them for a reason

Silent screams in my head again
only at dawn
but it's enough to start the shaking

someday, am i going to want to live again? there has to be a dawn after this storm. i just can't see it's there. i'm going on faith that this will end. that i'll live through it one more time. and in the meantime i just want to lay down and end

It's official. The crystal ball is out of the shop. fuck you very much, PsTB...

Just, do me one little favor, 'kay? Stop with the fucking driveby visions. Either give me something to work with, or don't bother.

hold me hurt me make me bleed
shadows remain
fire, burning in my soul
eat the hunger, the pain, eat the screams
feed the flame
won't warm me but it lights the dark
that first night on the wards
tired of the fighting, of striving
wise words in the dark -kind words are
spent not in vain but to soothe grief
sitting in a corner so no one touches
neck where his fingers played
back where his fingers clenched
prove mastery on his child
worthless girl cannot be changed
can be trained
earn her keep
middle of the night i woke up to the static
tv channel gone off the air
he's sitting in a chair awake not seeing
when i touch his hand he startles
tears in his eyes
pulls me close for comfort just a moment
then i lead him back to bed
where he can visit his ghosts till dawn
now i understand, finally
i have ghosts of my own
shadowing my eyes
i remember the bruises and the blood
i remember the ice in my heart
freezing me motionless
don't breathe
accept the things you cannot change
move along
i've been wrecked and there's nothing to see now
let me be with the memory
let the past take me and wash the guilt from my hands
guilt. causes numbness
there is no relief in the flesh
but while i taste the joy in others
i can remember that somewhere the sun still shines
i'll return to my ghosts and my dreaming

Sara. Raven. I summon thee from Shadows
Bring me your craft
Sweep control aside
Lend me strength and will to break
By your names I call you
By the debt owed, I summon you
By vows given on the starless hill
Return on phoenix wings
Meet me on the gypsy's road
Where the Crone spoke to me a warning
I dare more now
Demon owes me debt for feeding
Spill my power to feed the Sight
for I want to See again
I want to Know again
Want my skin to crackle with the power

where does time go?

I'm sitting here and all of a sudden it's hours later. I can't stop shaking. The shaking is starting in the inside again. I can't let it out. Can't tell. It's why I start babbling about the oddest things and can't keep anything else to myself. I guess if I swamp people with the extra stuff, it won't give them either the opportunity or the desire to press. Because when they start getting too close to my truth, the words choke in my throat.

It hurts. I don't want to face it. I need the hurt. I need someone to drag it out of me someday, word by word and inch by inch. That one last secret that I'm still holding onto... that I can't let go. That I promised never to tell. I guess I didn't promise so much as believe him when he said he'd kill me. I think that when it finally comes out it's going to break the last hold he has over me.

The night is closing in on me again. I don't want to flinch tonight when I go to bed and take my love's hand. I don't want to hurt him like that, no matter how much he tells me that he understands. I know that it still hurts him. Why do I hurt everyone I care about?

sleepless in san diego

The lights go out and I'm too f-cking afraid to sleep. I cannot let go of ccnsciousness long enough. It hurts too much. I've got therapy in the morning, still new to the group, and I am really dreading it cause I don't know how much I can lay on these people yet. I know the rules and what they're supposed to be, but every group's got a different dynamic and that scares me. I just don't know. How do I casually bring up that yeah, I had a bad week, but it wasn't really that bad and I feel pretty happy that I only had to draw blood once. I'm just tired, I guess. The lack of sleep doesn't help with it. The husband told me about an hour ago when he got in bed that I'm starting to get confused with me and the baby, subconsciously. That's why I can't get in bed anymore, that's why I get so jumpy. And I really shouldn't. I mean, I look forward to crawling in the nest with him at night, and it's a nice warm and comfy place to be. I reach out for his hand cause it's comfort and reassurance and it's what I've done nearly every night for the past four years. Only, these days, I'm flinching as I'm taking his hand. My body's gone numb again. I had to start wearing my wedding/engagement rings around my neck this week cause my fingers are too fat; that's not helping either. Since we've been married it's been the easy grounding trick I've used to get through times like this- not that they've been bad or frequent. Certainly nothing like now. When I feel that screaming inside and just want nothing more than to go ahead and do it, I look at my rings. One on each hand; and I see the love in his eyes and the safety he represents and I don't have that need anymore. Cause I promised him I wouldn't. And since I've had him, I really haven't needed to. When the demons come for me in the dark, he's there to take the place of the blades, and I can't reconcile wanting both right now.

One more time

whispers in the dark
winding through the doorframe
i'm kneeling behind the door listening
straining to hear the words

what did you tell him
what does he know
i don't care what you tell him i just want to know what he knows
so i know the rules

so i know what i can say without explaning
so i know what he sees when he looks at me

don't pity me
i chose my pain
and i choose to hold it so tightly that it will damn near kill me
before i can release it
let it go
back into the wilds where it came from

In the dark

I can feel you there, watching me.

It's black, I can't see anything. I can't move, the straps on my wrists won't let me, and I don't want to. It's bloodwarm in the darkness. The bed under me is soft, and it makes me wonder how I woke up in the first place, after I had been asleep so long. But then I remember why- you're watching me.

Can't help but shudder when your hand comes down and brushes over my shoulder. I can't help but want you to finish it tonight. Take me over. Finally, for once, claim me. Fingers tracing my body in the dark. Lips on my neck. Teeth grazing my pulse and dipping lightly down to nip at my skin. Draw my breast in your mouth and lick it. Feels so good just don't stop and my wrists are pulling at the straps before I realize that I'm yours, I'm helpless, and that's when I know I can't even make a sound.

Time is meaningless now. Sensations wash over me, they're calling me back, pulling me down and all I am is a quivering mass of nerves coming through my skin. I can't think anymore. I only react when you touch me. I can only pray that this will never end. Touch-starved, before this moment, and I'm shamelessly arching my back and letting my body beg for what my mouth cannot. And yet there seems no reason why I should not cry out... there's nothing in my mouth.

But there you are again. Your flesh is brushing my lips. I know what you want; what you want me to do. Lips parting, I draw you into my mouth and run my tongue over your cock. Even warmer than the skin touching mine that's making me crazy. I'm suckling you as you're teasing me. Payback's such a bitch, ain't it? Running my tongue under your head, just enough suction to make your body tense above mine... I can feel the catch in your breath and purr as I concentrate what's left of my brain on you.

It's over too soon. You're pulling back and squeezing my breast warningly. I want to scream more now as your body leaves mine. You can't leave me here, not like this, not again. Back arching again, this time in protest as my hips pump uneffectively against the empty space where you should be. I can't stop it. I want you. I need you touching me.

And then your warmth returns. The sun to warm my bones, and send me purring again- writhing against you. I can feel your hardness between my legs, demanding your way into me. I'm so wet and it just feels so good to have you sliding into me. Slowly. Very slowly. It can't ever stop, I will never be full of you. The slower you go the more I'm feeling and the more I want to start screaming or at least Something to show you what a good kitty I am. To beg you not to stop. To beg you to bring me over and over until the rest of my brain flees and then it's starting. A whole new different warmth. Deep inside me. And it's like a wave licking at my toes at first. Ebb and rise. Every time it rises a bit further and brings me just a little closer to heaven. When it reaches my brain the world stops. I don't know how much time has passed since you woke me. I don't know how much longer I'll be your prisoner here. I don't care. Just don't stop coming to my bed in the night, in the darkness, and don't ever take your warmth away from my skin.

Cascade

they said, standing over her, that she was too young to remember
they said, watching her squirm, that she was too young to talk
they said many things

talking of trivialities as a finger slipped inside her
drinking beer from cans as they met
as no one was home to see it

and once when she was three
there was the opportunity
he could not resist the chance to see if she would still obey him

called her into a peach-tiled room
clouded with steam
she stood on the toilet
to take him in her mouth again...
nearly choked by it

and she grew a little older
he grew a little bolder
and him, and the ones who had always been there
took their turns
playing with the girl

taught her reflexes
so that she would obey
and since it was all she knew
she did not hesitate
but part of her split off
separated from the rest

and she came to the call
dropped everything to answer
ran to be picked up
to be held
to be touched, to be the receptacle
for foreign objects in every way possible

only one thing they held themselves from
because it was the one thing most easily checked
so until she was seventeen she was still officially virgin

she'll never remember it
too young to know about it
too easily coerced from telling

although she did try, once
to have the father told
so that he threatened her strangled her raped her soul
as he had her body

and nothing was wrong

there's a screaming in my head that never ever goes away
except sometimes it dies down to a whimper

i wake up in the night covered in sweat
frozen stiff
to hear the last whispers in my ears
look what happens when we do this

and when the time came
that cancer had invaded the body
most of it stopped
afraid that such close observation would reveal the secrets contained

and she learned again how to take the pain without flinching
she learned again how to take it as her due
there is nothing that exists but pain...

she's too young to talk, to say it
she'll never remember it
what's the harm in a little game
haven't you always wondered what it would be like
and anyway, she's mine, you can do whatever you want...
just don't leave marks that her mother could see

and another, who thought he was the only one
who took his pleasure in the touch of her skin
of slipping his hands onto her body as she slept
as she pretended to sleep
caught up in the stillness
she had learned before
be still, ignore it, it will go away...

and there are so many ways to do this
so many ways to use her
and it doesn't hurt her--
or she'd do more than just lay there,
she'd do more than just sit there and take it

so it's no big deal
and when she's alone in the silence of the night
she wakes with a start at the first creak of her door
that is never allowed to close
she wakes, and is still, as they come to her bed
to the couch
to the bathroom
to the garden shed
and she is still waiting in silence
and she is still waiting in readiness for them to return

her dreams still haunted
coming faster, more quickly in succession
because she needs to know
has to know
because there is no other way to be
and because she needs too much
still waiting, with every word she writes, for the blow to fall

for them to come kill her dead

but they don't even have to be there
because she'll do it to herself now
she'll torture herself with going back into the nightmares
going back into the past seeking the reasons
there have to be reasons
there has to be a cause
a why

and she leaves her body to go there
back into the dreaming
she searches the past for what happened
and today she tried again
five hours searching to remember...

but

they said, standing over her, that she was too young to remember
they said, watching her squirm, that she was too young to talk
they said many things
she's too young to talk, to say it
she'll never remember it
what's the harm in a little game
haven't you always wondered what it would be like
and anyway, she's mine, you can do whatever you want...

waiting

I'm still waiting for the axe to fall on my head for what I did, all those years ago.

I'm still waiting for my father to come and kill me, cause I opened my mouth and told and now the reality's back out there. I can't escape what he did. I can't run away and hide anymore, and I can't go back to what I was.

Why am I here? Don't know. It's another series of bad dreams, really. Thing is, you don't have to be asleep to have them. These dreams come out in the daytime as fast as they come in the darkness. I crave the edge of steel to hold. Sliding through my skin, it doesn't even hurt.

The hurting comes later. When the dream fades. When the exhaustion hits. When I hear the echoes of a long-gone voice saying "my god, what have you done?"