written circa 10/2001

They are always the most disturbing, the most upsetting. They slither from that dark place inside me that is plain as day while awake. But these days I can hide. I hide so well that most don't see the raw pain. However, after dark, I am defenseless. It starts with me as helpless as from birth. From the day I was born. Stripped of protection, naked and open, I am literally subjected to a myriad of intense humiliations, hideous torture, overwhelming fear and endless impotent rage. My protestations are pathetic, feeble against The Wall. All because of a man who was too cowardly to stand up to anyone outside his family. Pop was big. Huge, an incredible mass that encompassed my entire view of the world. I awake with a jerk to the here and now, to a warm body holding me, over twenty years from the source of my Hellish childhood encounters. I clamp down on the tears, who threaten to remind me I am nothing, I have accomplished little and I will never be anything. Despite all who I love, what I do and all I own. I wonder if I will ever be free of my subconscious' view that my father still has control. The tears win. Thank God, Fraser dosen't wake up.

END