HOME | DD

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Life changes constantly and quickly.

Or maybe change creeps up bit-by-bit, and the final moment of realization is the sudden part.  I am not sure.  A few months ago everything was so different...

A favorite past time of mine was to watch Law & Order SVU on the couch after a long day of school.  Past time-such an odd phrase to use for something merely a few pages back in the history of my life.  It used to be that when I was in bed at night, I ordered that my door must always be open; not ajar, not cracked, wide open.  Back then my parents wanted my brother and I to get along better, so they would shove me into his car and send us out on movie dates-what an ironic word choice.

Here I am now.  I present to you the most paranoid person you will ever encounter.  Law & Order now remains a show that demands me to have a box of tissues near-by.  That is only on the good days when I can actually muster up the courage to watch the demons of my past, living through the television screen for all the world to see.  Is it odd for me to feel that any one who watches that show automatically knows my darkest secret?

Nighttime, what used to be my most beloved time of day, is now what I fear most.  I can see him, climbing through my window, breaking down my door...seeping in through every crack in the floorboards.  A speck of dust falls into my eye and I frantically search the ceiling above me, certain he is chiseling his way in off the roof.  Every shadow is his threatening body, every noise his demanding voice.  He used to coax, but not any more...he does not have the time to make things look like they were my idea any more.

I would like to be able to say I sleep through the night, but I cannot tell a lie.  I don't...I can't.  The night’s embrace feels like his own.  My bed reeks of his presence, his sins, and his desire to blanket me with his flesh.

As for my door, sealed as tight as possible, locked always.  He is strong; I know he can still break through.  My parents sleep next door, but I don't trust them to save me.  They weren't saving me when they allowed him to return here, why would they rescue me from him now?

Even with my doubts, I know they try.  No longer do they push me into his car so that he may take me around town.  No longer do they slip a twenty in his pocket telling him to take me out to have a good time.  No.  They do not.  We are rarely left alone, and if so, merely for a moment.  Yet it is in those moments, those terrifyingly long, horrific, moments...that I suffocate.  My heart is pulled and stretched to its length, than twisted into tight knots.

This is me...paranoid of everything.  My fears amount, and they pile so high every mountain is dwarfed into a mound of dirt, small enough to plant a mustard seed in.  Sharp objects haunt me, the night is a consuming, unbeatable force, and bedrooms are a frightening prison.  Do you know, I can't even enter into a bathroom with out checking the door a million times to make sure I do not accidentally walk into a men’s room?  I have before, and I nearly choked on my lungs as they tried to escape my throat.

Yes, this is the girl of many phobias.  Oddly enough, I let my guard down with people, and I embrace them into my heart.  I try to at least.  A year ago I let this one girl into my life.  She was nice enough, interesting, and brainy.  So I opened up.  But one day, I felt her turning on me.  Whether it was in the darkness of my panicking head, or a reality, I may never know.  The second I saw her back turning to betray me, the second a threat was released from her lips...I shut down completely.  She was the last person I've been quick to open up to.

There is one exception to most of these fears.  The church-my safe haven.  I walk in, and slowly the voices flee my mind...for a while my mind is free of nearly every demon.  Why?  God is in the church-it is the one place my brother is unlikely to ever venture to again.  The one place he fears the most.  A place where a power dwells that will see him for what he really is.  He feels unworthy of such a place, such a presence.  So there I know I am safe...from him at least.

Yet sometimes, there is still a demon, even in my most pleasant home.  The one that says, there are more like your brother, and they aren't scared to find you here.  I turn to check the back doors, ready to sprint at the first sign of a fear.  I check unknown faces in the crowd, searching their eyes for a sign of my demon.  I inspect their pockets, wondering if they contain a weapon...an intention to destroy the little bit of me that is still recognizable.  The little bit of my shattered remains...the rags that make up my being.

I hold onto these rags, as filthy and torn as they may be...for they are all I have left.  They are the last bit of me that has survived.

These rags contain every goodness I have left to give to this dying world.  They contain what's left of my broken, abandoned, bruised heart...all that I have to pass on to any being humble enough to accept such a sad, frazzled, gift.

I wonder, is that person you?  Are you willing to accept such a lowly gift as this?  Are you willing to accept who I am?  Or are you too scared to walk the streets with rags in your hand...?

Well, this is all I have.  This is all I am.  This is how I live.  This is the best I can do...

Until I can trade these ashes in to God, for beauty.