I toss and I turn.
Images boiling behind my closed eyes
Shifting and changing – amorphous,
Just like the line between
Safe and danger
Friend and foe
Trust and betrayal.
They crawl just beneath the surface.
I switch the pillow
To find a cooler side
As my heart aches
To find a piece untarnished.
Thoughts creep into my mind
New visions into its eye,
They are seen and recorded
But then shoved away
To forget.
To forget my past
Forget his face.
It scars my mind,
His image, there again
Just as clear as it was…
That night.
When all was lost…
His hand reached out
Claw-like and terrifying.
His smile changing,
Twisting,
From my confidant
To my terror.
I wrench my eyes open and he’s gone.
With him, goes my night’s sleep
My peace of mind
My trust
My innocence.

And, just like then, I cry.
I cry goodbye to my childhood,
To who I once was,
For now it seems foreign
Naïve … stupid.
Back to that moment as
I watched as my innocence was murdered.
The funeral was held
On the floor
Where I was thrown
On the floor
Where I clenched my arms around my body
On the floor.
On that damned floor
The horrible teacher of pain.
The floor where his knee learned to hold down a struggling girl
Where his palm learned the feel of a friend’s raw and torn flesh
Where his ears learned to block out my screams.
And so, tonight, just like that night,
I will fall asleep alone and broken
Wishing for someone to rescue me.
From this pain of my own making
I know I’m to blame,
For the girl always is,
But what if the girl, best friend, and victim are one in the same?
Who’s to blame then?
Too many questions, still hurting
And still alone.
So, for now, I sleep.