Tunnel Light

This day is cold, wet, and dreary but this day gives me hope. I have kept myself locked inside for a good while now because of all of the extraneous circumstances. My door is open and the music is playing and it might be hard but I'm here and I'm not scared of them. I'm not afraid of what they think or say....because I know it was all it my head. It was all MY HEAD...I still feel it lurking around inside but it's not stopping me from trying. The fear wasn't here when they arrived either. It's a strange feeling...which is STRANGE because it never should have been to begin with. Being alone with myself outloud and around other people really makes it better. I feel myself slowly rising from the ashes. Slowly, surely. It will be a long time before I will be able to rise for someone other than myself. Expectations will cause me to hide and run for awhile because I know they aren't good for me at this juncture. I know I CANNOT be good in a romantic relationship for a GOOD while. So...what do I do with what I have now? This, I know, is where i need real outside help. Because I don't know how to stop the loop that cycles between words and actions. I should be my words...my actions should be what I say, what I know to be the right thing. Yet they still are not. So that's what I need. Help, advice from an expert. Someone that will guide me in what to do to STOP myself from doing what I know I shouldn't (no...not sex, not at all...not exactly)....After that is done...after I grow from here and figure THAT out; I will then need to know how to be OK with letting someone take care of me when I need to be taken care of (without freaking out) I will need to train myself to be healthy enough to be an equal. It is so hard for people who haven't experienced what I have to understand (except professionals). and my fear is that I will be though of in the same way as I thought of another in the past. That I can handle it...if we're together I can be a rock all the time and handle ALL of it. Not true. It's abuse...it's not right. KNOW...and be selfless. KNOW that I cannot be what you want me to be for a good while. I hope not forever. I make NO promises.

Ride

I feel the motion of the car before I open my eyes

.The air is blue-black, brown-black, black-black.

Smell of gas, oil, animals.

I'm in the trunk.

My wrists and ankles tied.Tape over my mouthit almost covers my nosebut I can breathe barely.I must have been here for hours,everything's stiff and my head throbslike someone's drumming on china.The car stops.He turns off the motor -- but there are no traffic sounds.No people sounds. No wind. What place has no wind?I turn my head towards the soundslike people watch radios when something terrible happens.My palms are sweating. Where am I?The trunk squeaks as he lifts it up and the sun blinds me.He almost looks like a faceless Jesus surrounded by light.He pulls me out of the trunk and bangs my head against the door.I try to cry out, but it comes like a hum.He drags me, half-standing, along a dirt road into a house.I can't see any other houses and it looks like a farm.The screen door bangs behind me and I feel a deep, deep pressure inside.All the rules have changed here.I'm dragged down a hall like a bag and I look for a phone, other doors.Nothing but bare floors and brown boxes in small rooms.He pulls me into the bathroomand I almost crack my head as he pushes me onto the floor.Tilts his head to the side and gazes at meas if I was a pet then walks out.I'm lying there for a long time, trying to get the tape off of me.My eyes are tearing. I don't make a sound.I can't get up and I keep rolling from side to side, trying not to make noise.I've got to get him to talk to me.If I can get this thing off my face I can talk to him.I'll tell him my name.Have you killed other women in here?I'm thinking you've got hundreds of them nailed down,hung on walls, hanging from ceiling fansswinging dead in summer wind.Why did you pick me?If I had stayed to finish at the libraryI would have been there twenty minutes longermaybe I'd have been OK.Would have rushed into the house, books piled up in my arms like a baby,and blurted explanations why I was sorry.So sorry I'm late everyone.Would you have waited for me anyway?Would you have picked another woman?Would I have read about her in the paper and saidoh my god, I was there that night...and called all my friends in a panic.Telling them then how much I loved themas if I'd never have the chance again.I wonder what everyone is doing now. Putting up signs.Showing my picture on the evening news. Calling old friends.Maybe I'm not even considered missing yet.The family will fall apart and my parents will go crazy. Slowly.My brother will be so quiet at the funeral and insist the casket be closed.(I never even told anyone what kind of funeral I wanted when I died.)Maybe years from now they'll find my skeletonon the floor here and they'll have to use dental records to identify me.My family will say \"At least we know now.We always hoped she was alive somewhere.We just hope she's in peace.\"When I sleep my dreams are crazy -- I'm flying over fields.I don't think I sleep for more than twenty minutes and when I wake up,it feels like I'm under a heavy blanket. I'm still here.As I wake up I hear a dog barking in the distanceand I think I'm in my parents' house in South Carolina.When I open my eyes, there's a shotgun pressed between them.I'll never get married.I'll never have kids.I'll never go to Europe.I'll never learn to play piano.I'll never write a book.The last thing I hear is a click