Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      People Who Give Children Jack Chick Tracts for Halloween


    Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

                                          -Saint Matthew 7: 9


If someone gives your child a Jack Chick
That is not a well-intentioned mistake
He is giving your child bigotry and fear
Hellish hatred, existential despair

If someone gives your child a Jack Chick
He is giving your child demons to haunt her dreams
Crude visions of sin to blight her happiness
His own satanic fears to destroy her hopes

If someone gives your child a Jack Chick
He is telling her that Jesus judges her ******

I find myself offering to the death of cold.
Your love is inhospitable.
Prolonged exposure to your love
has caused numbness in my body.
I’ve learned to handle the bitterness,
But each layer that kept me warm has been stripped.

Inside of me,
the same stinging chill is found
that your heart was frosted in.
And now I understand when the sorrow became frozen.
The icy heart hardens into a glacier
when the agony remains in a fixed spot,
forced to recrystallize.

I’ll burrow myself in the comfort of snow,
stabbing myself with ice spikes I've sharpened,
knowing the only amenity
is my death tonight.
That everything I could’ve endured,
was the frost mounting against my flesh.

All my life, I have been told that you learn from experience.
How do you shape traumatic experiences into the word "learn"?
As much as I try to budge and fit it, it pours out.
I try to tell myself that this will make me stronger.
I try to convince myself that this was an experience to learn from.
Those words fill my mind like a foreign language.

The only words I know now are the ones that are spread across my body.
He may have never laid a finger on me but he stole my innocence, my imagination, my childhood.
An 11 year old should not be corrupted with the words of a man.
For 3 years, I believed his words didn't cause harm.

How do I tell my younger self that the pain was a learning experience?
My experience is not a touch of a hot stove or a break of a bone from a fall.
How do I fit my pain in the word "learn"?
For I am not stronger, I am not a survivor, I am losing myself slowly in the sound of his voice.
Drowning myself in a pond of his words, I find myself every night.

You know, I never actually got away?
I left those 4 walls long ago
But the friends I made while I was alone..?
Still keep me company inside my head

They remind me every day
That Im not capable of  making good choices.
That it's safer to be alone, behind walls.
That crying is not just weak, but dangerous.

Because when people come inside,
They will hate you.
They will hurt you.
And worst of all,
They will never. Even try. To understand you.

You probably aren't worth the time.
Or even the space you inhabit.
You are possibly a vile and useless creature
Born to be wrong, and always sorry.

So don't be late
Don't defend yourself.
Don't cry - and if you do:
Don't ever let them hear you.
Don't say one ******* word,
Of one ******* thought,
Out loud. Ever.

Those are the rules.
And if you ever find yourself struggling
To follow those rules:
Stop breathing until it gets easier.

Its been years now, but...
I never actually left that room....
Those 4 walls came with me,
And I carry them inside every day.

On good days they keep me safe.
And on bad days they close in so tightly,
That it gets dark, and hard to breathe.
But on any given day?
I just feel... So **** heavy...

©pennamebreez

You made me feel stuck
You made me feel gross
You made me feel unwanted
You made me feel like an inconvenience
You made me feel ugly
You made me feel like a waste
You made me feel discarded
You made me feel like a mistake
You made feel powerless
You made me feel worthless
You made me feel inhuman
You made me feel like a ruined day

A ruined day that lasts forever...
And there is no running from it
There is no hiding from it
There's just me, unmoving
Unable to be whatever you wanted
When I never really had a chance

You made me feel like gum
On the bottom of your shoe

I did not deserve to feel that way

©pennamebreez

She was a girl
full of dreams,
affectionate, adoring,
easy to please,
a full life ahead,
so it seems....

Living and laughing, dancing a dream,
loving life, to its means.
sixteen and beautiful
full of passion and grace,
she hungered for the day
she could take her place.

Hopes and dreams
of a full life ahead,
she saw it coming
she never had any dread.

Living and laughing, dancing a dream
loving life, to its means.
daytime turned to darkness
joy to grief,
laughter to tears
with no passion or grace.

Beaten and wounded
youth taken away,
she longed for the day
she could escape this place.

Protecting the ones she loved
from the outcome of her fate,
she pushed it deep down inside
and hide it at any rate.

Day’s turned to weeks
weeks turned to years,
she kept smiling and living
but joy was replaced with fear.

Longing for the one
who would hold her tight,
turning her darkness
back into light.

Living and laughing, dancing a dream
Loving life to its means…
~
Copyright © All Rights Reserved ~
Stormy Angel/DMA
Registered: 2015-04-20 07:08:23 UTC

April is ****** Assault Awareness Month along with National Child Abuse Prevention Month the two go hand in hand. Any form of Child Abuse happens from infant age to adult age and at times carry’s beyond. If you see or feel a child is being abused in any form of any way call this National Number To Report It…
1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) or visit the web site at, Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline… http://www.childhelp.org/pages/hotline-home   Crisis Counselors Available 24/7.

I haven't wrote in 2 years other than the other day, it felt good to write something again. April is National Child Abuse Awareness Month. I have always helped to spread all abuse awareness in April and I'm going to do it this April also.
We are creative writers, we know words hold power, so I'm hoping to see more of my fellow writers spread abuse awareness this month. If you do send me a message and I will share them. It's really important to spread abuse awareness but this year, it's even more important. Because of the  pandemic more people have been cooped up with their abusers so unfortunately abuse has become worse. The spreading of  awareness helps give victims hope and helps give people strength to not look the other way, to pick up that phone and make that call xover and over again if they have to. Please help out by even posting one poem on awareness that I will help highlight.

He treats me like a Queen,
Still I can’t help but wonder if he will be like you too
Funny how I am afraid of what he might become yet the most comforting place I’ve ever been is his arms.
I look to him for protection yet I fear him and what he might do,
He’s never given me a reason to doubt him but most of the men from my past life haunt my thoughts, spreading lies like wildfire
I run to him, almost as if being attracted by a magnet, it’s out of my control
I cringe whenever he takes his belt off,
I know he would never hit me yet the memory of leather striking my skin like a whip,
My mother’s hands pounding on the door and her dread-filled screams,
lingers in the back of my mind like a nightmare I cannot escape from
Now that I am older it’s easier to understand she knew what he was capable of,
She had been in my position before,
She never told me as a child because I had this glorified image of him,
He was the first man that seemed like he wanted to take care of us and love us,
I viewed him as a father and even called him Dad
He had just loved his alcohol and cigars more than his love for us
I sometimes start to think about what our future children will look like,
But I stop in my tracks because that evil voice in my head asks “what if he turns out like him”?
Will it always be like this, I fear