I last saw her leaving the pizza parlor
Where I now spend my lazy afternoons.
It was our second chance encounter,
Maybe the last?

My final glimpse of her?
Rebecca's long wavy brown hair,
As she briskly walked out that door,
Perhaps out of my life forever?

The last thing she said to me?
As she turned back to respond
To my desperate query:
"Will I ever see you again?",

Rebecca replied, in that unique voice of hers that always
Pierced my foolish heart and
Mesmerized my senseless brain:
"Don't you have a wife and daughter?".

I stood in the street
                       In the suns direct heat
                                                       I melted

                                                       Into
                       The storm drain below
Mixed with the water

I began to flow

Far far away
                     Home to the ocean
                                                     From where I once came
                                                     Back in the sun
                     Heated  I rose
And again fell as rain

Sometimes,
When you're sitting on the ground
Alone
And the tears are streaming down your cheeks
Creating caverns
Digging deep into your flesh
Hot and clear and razor sharp
In these moments,
The sadness
The pain
It's caused not just by the bad memories
But also the good ones
The good memories
You know won't happen
Ever again
The good memories that are
Forever
Stuck in the corners of the past,
Corners that are filling with dust and cobwebs
At an exponential rate
Corners that,
With every tick of the clock
Seem to speed further and further
Out of reach
Out of sight

But never out of mind

We all carry a picture
Some of these pictures are adorned with the likes of a fancy frame
Others, no frame at all
But each of us walks around dragging a picture behind us
A picture of what our life is supposed to look like
Painted diligently by the brush of our best intentions
It's a great secret
One of the deepest secrets of humanity
That in the end,
None of our lives turn out the way
We thought
Or imagined
And then
We get angry, confused, frustrated
We punch holes straight through our pictures
We tear them into shreds
We cry over the loss of our picture
But the truth is
No matter how carefully we pay attention to detail
No matter how long we spend
We can't paint our future stroke for stroke
We don't have that much power
As much as we sometimes wish to believe
Otherwise
Most of life is simply
A reaction to circumstances
Sometimes
The best thing we can do is
Destroy our picture
Start fresh
And paint
A new stroke
A new color
Each day
As we move and breath
And take what comes

The insides of my eyelids
Are tattooed with the
Scars of my soul
I close my eyes and
The slides click into place
Rapidly flashing before me
Colliding violently
Within the tunnel of my vision
The images
Gouge out my eyes
Drill into my skull
Haphazardly, they
Caress
Manipulate
Assault
My mind
I watch this show before me
Helpless
Unable to lift my eyes
Unable to wake from this
Terror

But
Suddenly I am awake
Alive
Breathing in real time
Seeing in real time

And I can still feel it
The distinctive touch of
His hands
On mine
Pushing down
Halting my fight
His fingers
Digging into my wrist
Squeezing
The life escaping from inside me
As his grasp gets
Tighter
And Tighter
And Tighter
My bones
Cracking under
His brute force
Yes
I can feel it

All day I walk around
And I feel this
Suffocating hold
And I swear
People can see it
The marks he has left

But
I really don't care
If people see
I just can't stand
That feeling
Those indents
The pressure
I feel it and

I can't stand it

Do you remember that year
I couldn't sleep?
I ran into your bedroom
Almost every night
Crying
Making up some excuse

Some nights you would
Send me back to bed
Disgusted
I was too old to be bothering you
But other nights
You would pull me right in the middle
And both of you would wrap your arms around my trembling frame
And finally
I would fall asleep
Next to you
I was safe
The images couldn't touch me
The probe that normally tormented me
Couldn't penetrate my mind
I was secure in your embrace

And then they disappeared
For good
These images
They left
And I slept
Peacefully

But now
They have returned

You said you wanted
Details
So I gave you
All I could

It wasn't much
But it was enough
I thought I could handle it
But I couldn't
I can't

Now I am back to being afraid,
Afraid of closing my eyes
For who knows
What will meet me in this dark?

When I said I couldn't say anymore
I meant it

But when I said
I wanted to protect you

I wasn't telling the whole truth

For with each memory
Bypassed
I was also protecting
Me