Within

Sometimes when I walk alone late at night I sigh. I think of all the things in my life and can't help myself. I've been down a rough road with traps and pits and thorny twisted turns.

I have been neglected, betrayed, scorned and hated. Yet, I have managed to move forward when it seemed the world wanted nothing more, than to hold me back.

I sigh for all the hurting, wanting, and needing I endured before I could speak. I sigh for the all the pain, suffering, confusion, and defeat I learned before I could see.

I look back on my life and am amazed at how it once was. Today I sometimes forget how life started for me. Or at least I like to think I have forgotten. In truth the memories are with me every day. They follow me around and hide just out of site.

Whenever it seems I am happiest the shadows play just behind my vision, clouding my sight from happy moments flooding me instead with sad torment, best left forgotten.

A day with the one I love, becomes a memory of a night with the one I fear. Tender caresses and sweet kisses become clawed like groping and terrifying slobbery demands.

Moments of happiness are few and far between these days. Fear of my memories keep me locked up inside. I am a house and I stand behind my stained glass eyes and watch the world pass me by.
I never open the windows or doors for fear of the memories escaping. And I never reach out or try to run, for there is no way to prevent the memories from following.

I am more a fortress then a house or home.
But it keeps me safe and others too. If the memories were ever allowed to roam freely,
I could not begin to imagine the pain and suffering they could cause me and others....
Oh the truth and horrors, they lie behind these hazel eyes