You

Did you really think it was going to be that easy?  That there would be no repercussions?

Your life was... chaotic. Nothing happened as it should, and you were not just walking on eggshells, but tiptoeing between them, desperately trying not to crack even one, because you knew what would happen if you made even a single misstep.

How long were you afraid?  When did that start?   Do you not remember the times you spent shaking,crying, arms wrapped around what was left of you, in that freezing outdoor toilet, terrified to go back into the house because the screams hadn't stopped?  Do you not remember the long hours curled up inside yourself making ti, intricate things: becoming so focussed that only the work existed?  Plasticine meals for plastic dolls, every individual pea, carrot slice, chip, and berry crafted to be the same size and shape as its fellows, carefully laid out on miniature plates alongside cutlery made with the same obsessive precision.

You crawled under the piano and curled up there with your fingers jammed into your ears so you wouldn't hear the  beatings. You forced yourself not to gag on foods that made your stomach rebel: but better that than the shouting and the fists..


You forgot so much. Buried it like an old bone, and covered it so well that you never could have found it again... not YOU. but WE did. We dug up each foul, nugget and hid it away. We remembered for you. We hid your tears and sickness and desperation; because you needed us to. You could not have survived if you had tried to carry that with you through the ever-increasing warzone around you. You had enough to bear.


You survived that. Somehow.  But then there was him: and You. and both.. and the fear was fed again, over and over, Making you doubt. Leaching all of the colour from the little world that you still could see. And those eggshells... all around you: under your feet: a shifting mandala of them that tripped an tricked you every day until there was never a way to avoid them: only to step as lightly as you could, and hope that the shattering and breaking would not be heard. Sometimes, it wasn't. Sometimes.
But mostly there was more roaring: more beating down with words, and contempt. More reducing you, until you were a vague blurred shadow hiding not only from him. but from yourself, And., eventually, from life.  You didn't seek death, as such:  just hoped that you could cease to exist. That the weak grey wraith that you had become would one day sink into the cold stone against which you seemed to be cast, and disappear.  But you didn't.  Somehow, you found a little of You that still burned.. maybe not so bright as you once did: but that ember remained, and you walked away. almost a quarter of a century of trying to become nothing: of being so afraid and miserable that you had no interest in You: and you ended it.

trouble is, that now, NOW you're finding out that walking away ISN'T the end.  he may no longer be there, screaming cruelty into your face: destroying any fraction of trust in yourself that might have hung on:  but his legacy is still beating you down.. destroying you.. because you still haven't completely escaped.. and some part of you is still curled into that tight, unknowing ball, and screaming silently into your clenched fists: waiting for HIM to end it.. because you knew that he could, and you knew that he wanted to. but his cowardice would not allow him, and so your pain continued, peppered with his apologies, accusations, excuses and rants...

You need to remember before you can face it... and you need to face it before you can heal,  You never learned how to heal. I know.. But you have to find out. Because You can't really be YOU until you do.

me

You


There have been too many years. Too many decades of trying to guess who you might be. Better that you forget, and move on to who you are now.

You still have the nightmares. I know that you still wake some nights, cold and shivering: rank,  with the fear sweat soaking into the bedding. I hear the gasping, panting breath forced from you as you run, endlessly, from the things in your dreams that seek you out and hunt you down. And I know that some of those dreams have haunted you since you were small... so small that you should not remember. So small that you should not have been able to form or comprehend the images, let alone remember them. And now, when they come to you in the darkness, in the distant recesses of your unconscious, you know them. You are so distressingly familiar with them that you whine in your sleep because you know what is coming, just as surely as you know that you can't escape it.

Some say that dreams are simply a way for your mind, your subconscious, to work through and make sense of things that have happened to you. Making sense of your day; your world.  Others say they are simply unfettered imagination - your mind, released by sleep, running free.

But a few, like your grandmother, knew that sometimes, dreams are warnings. Portents of things to come - changes. Events.Experiences.. things that you need to be aware of, in order to avoid them.. or to survive, whichever their circumstances dictate.  You...

You


Survivor. Escapee? Not you. You never avoided: there was no opportunity for that. You were dragged in, and through, and out the other side of a hell not of your making.  You survived: but not unscathed.

Some say you are broken. Some say that you are a victim, destroyed by the acts of others..  We know how wrong they are. We know YOU. damaged, yes: but not broken. Not entirely. Victimised, perhaps: but no longer a victim. You came through, scarred and different, but you came through nonetheless. You... no longer who you once were. Not now who you were originally destined to be... but always, ever, and completely You.

I know you. I know you well... and yet there is so much more to know.

You.  Remember?  Always You.

I know you. Because, despite every shattering event that tried to make it otherwise.. I AM You.