A mind that can't focus

words just out of reach

Beauty outside my window

floating so close yet so far

I try to grasp it but my fingers

brush ghostly fragments

Colors leak into a canvas

of monochrome madness

Sleep becomes fitful

waking is a nightmare

Phantom hands tighten

my eyes fly wide open

Cries go unheard through

a voice rendered mute

Panic fades with the rising sun

but its touch lingers on

Drifting on the heaviness

of my softly sinking mind

when you fell asleep at my house,

i traced my finger down your cheek

over the freckles sprinkled across your face

over your hidden dimples

over your sweet cherry lips

i leaned down,

feeling your breath on my cheek

your soft lips parted

and it took all i had

not to kiss you.

because we're just friends,

you and i,

we braid each others hair

sleepover every other day

whisper velvet secrets

but you smell so sweet

and when i look into your eyes,

i forget to breathe

your dimples

were they left by the deep kiss of an angel?

at school when you run to him

and he kisses you

you look at him with your soft doe eyes

i clench my fists

my fingernails dig into my skin

until they draw blood

you're so cruel

when will you realize?

that you torture me

with your smile

and

your

dimples

What's my shame? I just wrote a paragraph and deleted it. Someone else on this thread, for this challenge, wrote that Prose deleted their first paragraph by accident. Oops - I just did, on purpose.

What's my shame? I am ashamed that my biggest desire is to go to an open mic and read aloud my writing. That I could possibly fathom, in any planetary system, that my writing is on par with other writers, that what I have to say matters.

Here's what happens:

I take that insecurity and put it in a glass jar. My writing is inside that glass jar, and the person I think of as my "writing self" is in there too, unaware that their words are transparent for everyone to see. Because for me, my "writing self", I am talking into a void, potentially a void where someone will see me and understand me, and relate to me, but a VOID. The internet is a void. I write posts about my trauma and don't think anyone is going to know, at the end of the day, what my name is on my driver's license - and be able to link that name back to me, the "writing self" me.

I'm hoping to dear god no one on here knows me personally.

Just like today, at the brewery, when the bartender said he "definitely knows me" from another bar he works at, and I literally could not remember seeing him once, ever. This is my terror: that I will be recognized as the name on my driver's license in a situation where *I actually want my trauma to remain anonymous*.

This, ultimately, is why I don't do open mics: because someone always has a camera, and it's always turned on to video, and I'm going to be somewhere on social media, whining about my trauma, when I had hoped to be remain mysterious, someone who doesn't share my legal name. I don't want to be OUT THERE. When I can be HERE. Anonymous and contained.

So how is this "my shame"? Sometimes I get published and become horrified when it becomes clear that - what? omg - MY name was published alongside what I wrote. Like, no no no. Because like in my real life, where I'm the girl who wears the sweatpants and no makeup to the store, and there, and at the end of the day, I don't want to be recognized as The Girl Who Has Trauma. I'm just here for eggs and milk, thanksverymuchandhaveagooddayma'am. But I do want to be seen as who I "really am" on this writing platform. I do want to be seen as my "writing self." Just don't, like that bartender, say my legal name out loud to me in real life.

Because I will cower, and I will run.

Obsessive

Compulsive

Disgusting

Repulsive

Circular thoughts haunt the crevices in between

Never cease

Never halt

They talk about hell

As if it’s a fictitious place

For me its a frame of mind

When my mind has too much space

Perhaps it is

Just a place in my head

For that I can’t escape

It’s exponential dread

I am the victim and the villain

This is my hell

The back and forth war

I have with myself

It is not a game

In which I can win

You cannot fight your way out

Of a debilitating tailspin

I can come here and visit

Any time that I want

Sometimes the comfort of the familiar

Is all I got

Often, my mind

Forces me to go

But you can't hide from yourself

You can’t put on your own show

I find myself here

And I take a look around

Waiting for the other part of me

To wake up and be found

Mostly I get stuck here

Fully aware

I am fighting with myself

What a glorious pair

Me, Myself and I

Maybe it’s three

The victim and the villain

And the part that’s actually me

Thoughts encircling

Perseverating at best

Negativity worsening

Leaving whatever’s left

Fire and ice

Don’t play with fire

I exhaust myself

Trying to constantly rewire

Hell is not a place for the dead

It is for the living

It's where your spirit dies

It is the ultimate unforgiving

Most paint a picture

So let me paint you mine

The fires burning here

Are the thoughts in my mind

The demons most speak of

The torturers that come

I am that to myself

My inner critic’s voice an all too familiar hum

When you speak of your hell

How often do you go?

Is it a war within you?

Always fighting to run the show?

This is my hell

Because there is no escaping

There is me, and my devil

And she is always waiting

- Do you remember...

- I don't. All memories from my past are erased.

- How come?

- I won't tell you my flaws, they are not to be praised.

- Still there's nothing that comes to your mind?

- Nothing, blind spots, blurred shadows, pictures of something unclear.

- Aren't you really one of a kind!

- Hope so, otherwise there's a good reason for fear.

- Why so? Isn't it good to let go of all the bad things that trouble your sleep?

- I prefer them to stay as long as I know that the good ones remain, those I wish to keep.

It's our memories that make us unique.

Our life - worthy of living.

Alas, we are not the ones to pick

Which one to stay and which to give in.

And when your entire past withers with time

When it's too late to search for a cure

You have two choices - heads or tails of the dime,

Either to grieve or to accept and inure.

I may seem funny but do not blame me if you get bored later.

My advice may help you once or twice but there is no guarantee it will lead to good outcomes.

I get angry and shout, so, be careful before you try to get close.

I smile mostly but does not mean I have success.

I have plenty of fears but I can hide them well.

If you think you can fool me with your fake talk then goodbye because I can see through you as I can see myself- clear.

M found an old lady at the park.

"Excuse me" The old woman smiled.

"Can you take care of my bag? I need to use the public toilet."

Without hearing reply, M went away.

M came 5 minutes later and tried to take her bag.

"This is mine" The old lady argued and fell during the scuffle.

"Why bother an old person?"

A couple confronted M.

Meanwhile, the old woman vanished.

The next day, the old woman sat with a young girl who had M's bag.

M angrily went closer.

"My Grandmother has Dementia." she gave the bag to M.

I don't like dogs with two legs and two hands.

They are the real burden on Earth.

They harm those close to them.

Bite the hands that loved them.

Men-dogs say they don't like four-legged dogs because they bite; well, I don't like two-legged dogs backstabbing sites.

They cheat and commit fraud without guilt or remorse.

Four-legged creatures are at least loyal and smart to some extent.

I don't usually tell folks about my own private Hell, and I had no intention of doing so here, despite the invitation, but a second invitation from LilEnigma has also arisen--something about vulnerability... about trust. What kind of horrible things have we donein our lives--which kind of lends itself to a type of private Hell. So why not? I'd often heard about "the gates of Hell," but I always figured the term to be sort of... fantastical. As it turns out, there actually is a gate to Hell just outside of Poughkeepsie.

Poughkeepsie-- all my life, I'd never known, or considered, for that matter, how to spell it. Strange though, the moment you see it, you know how to pronounce it, regardless of its many letters, and regardless of how one might think it would be spelled. I got stuck staring at it-- Poughkeepsie. I stared at it so long that there developed little faint white rings on some of the keys of my otherwise black keyboard--a tell-tale sign of someone who has found one of the gates.

There's divided highway east of town called Haight Avenue, which turns into Manchester Road coming through Arlington-- three lanes of traffic headed either direction. Officially, it's simply, Highway 55. About three miles east, you can take an exit onto a plain, two-lane road, Old Manchester Road, which immediately turns into Titusville Road beginning at the bridge over Wappinger Creek, then leads south into, you guessed it... Titusville.

The gate of Hell, to which I refer, is located almost exactly halfway across the 181-foot bridge over Wappinger Creek. In June of 2016, I stood on the edge of that bridge and decided to jump.

I did not. Instead, my phone rang, and it was someone saying they wanted to publish my book. The gates of Hell would have to wait.

Telling you about the gate is the easy part. I've done that so many times that it's begun to become numb. No, the intriguing part of this exercise is the vulnerability... the trust. So, let's try this.

In 2012, Kendall was 17, Ashley was 9, and their mother would harm me physically if I revealed her age at the time. Danielle. Danni. I had recently published (self-published) The Second Rape of Doctor Emily Pershing. Life was good-- damn good. Our family had been on a quest, seeking out information regarding Danni's birth mother, as she had been adopted as an infant and had decided to find out as much as possible about her past. We found out a lot. A lot.

The love was thick, heavy, wonderful. The proverbial cup had runneth over. We decided to share the story-- share the love, so to speak. Danni, Kendall, and I shared as much as we could remember, and the majority of it was handed down from Danni's mother, and a beautiful friend whom we desperately wished we could meet. The crux of this thing-- the book-- was that sacrifices were made in order to give Danni life, and in turn, give life to her daughters, creating every beautiful thing which filled the cup.

As much as I wanted to believe the story was well-prepared and researched and presented, I have come to accept that there is something missing. The reviews have been as exceptional as they have been rare. To my knowledge, fewer than ten people have ever read the thing. Call it what you will, the simple fact is... it's a failure.

On March 4, 2016, Danni's impossibly adorable brother, Percy, had treated the girls to a road trip to visit my parents, who had moved to New York for reasons that I still cannot fathom. One of our family quirks was that, whenever we saw something while traveling which made any of us wonder, "What is that?" or "Where does that road go?" we'd head off to solve the puzzle. I imagine, someone must have thought, "Why do they call it 'Manchester Road?'" Then they convinced Uncle Percy to exit on Old Manchester Road, to confirm whether or not Manchester truly existed.

A moving truck lost a wheel-- an entire wheel-- while crossing westbound on the bridge over Wappinger Creek, causing the driver to lose control and cross over into the eastbound lane. Percy, Danni, 21-year-old Kendall, and 13-year-old Ashley were hit, head-on, bouncing their minivan up and over the guard rail and into the creek, killing everyone inside.

My heart damn near chokes me when I think about how I used to joke that life was going to suck when Ashley turned thirteen. I thought she'd be such a tremendous pain-in-the-butt, so head-strong and argumentative. I thought she'd be impossible.

She wasn't. She wasn't. Dear God in Heaven, she was absolutely perfect!

I've found salt formations to be remarkably resilient. How they last under constant abuse is beyond me. The only thing which seems to break them down, other than some type of cleaning agent which I haven't the heart to employ, is the very thing which created them. And here I am, having once again, added more droplets, which will eventually dry, the salt crystalizing, reinforcing the little white rings.

The publisher who called about the book was complete BS-- wanted me to spend hundreds of dollars to have them redesign the cover, proofread it, and put absolutely zero effort into advertising it anywhere other than where it's already easily found... and that's the hard part: the vulnerability. Sacrifices were made, lives were uprooted, hell, lives were lost in order to ensure just the possibility of Danni's existence. Her life was made possible, Danni's children's lives were made possible, and I was, by far, the greatest beneficiary of those lives... and now they're gone. All there is, to demonstrate the awesome selflessness of the people and the extraordinary beauty of the sacrifices made, is this story--my contribution, my effort-- and as I stood on the edge of that bridge and stared into mouth of the gates of Hell, it was my greatest, most profound and contemptible regret, in this cruel life, to have known that in that effort, I had failed them. All of them. It's as if none of them were ever here.

And neither am I.