Keep in touch, you say as you
Move your hands away from me.
I'm freezing in my core.
Its snowing here, but my face is hot. Embarrassed-- alone.
I have too many bills for my pay,
And I know how too many pills taste.

But I was getting better.
Not daydreaming of hanging
Just hanging on your words.
Safe and warm.
But that place isn't here anymore.
And its not going to be forced back.

I'll get there again. When its time.
I need to go inside.

You stay honest and quiet in these soft moments with me,
But walls go up when it rains too hard.

Soft moments are hidden,
they must be lived in fear. By cowards.

No. They are the bravest moments we have.
Vulnerability is forged here. But here it could be broken.

One of the first looked soft, but was prickly to touch.
He must have been an illusionist,
My dandelion was a small cactus.
What I know now, I don't regret learning the hard way.

Be vulnerable anyway. And learn softness when it rains.
Intimacy through truth will free us
from a hard world.

When I was 16 I ran from more monsters than I ever did when I was young. Well..younger. At 16 years old I was still a child.

At 8 years old I loved ghost stories. Mysteries. ****** doo, goosebumps. I was sure I was going to be a forensic scientist just like I saw on CSI.

At 16 I was taught to see shadows on the faces of strangers. Danger flickered behind the eyes of the people I knew I could trust. That I knew I should trust.

Staying in bed never helped, but some days it was all I could do. Nightmares entered every hour of my restless sleep. No episode of NCIS could stir up as much fear as a face I've tried to forget.

At 20 years old I'm still afraid. Silently and with a smile. A similar face or frame reminds me of the blur of memories that took a brave little girl and forced her to be a terrified woman.