Hello,
Sleeplessness, my old friend.  Care to
join me in reflection?

There is shame
typing these words.  I feel embarrassed that
I have not written since March.  There
are things we do not talk about and would rather go without.  Cowardly, I know.

These emotional,
late nights make me reflective and pensive. 
I was thinking of the ones who made me: the ones who created, shaped,
and formed this undesirable, inferior, socially-awkward waste. 

I was thinking of
the first one who damaged me, who taught me no touch was safe and that even as
an adult few people would believe me. 
And I was thinking of sending him another letter.  I even know what I want to say.  But no words I can write will ever make him
feel as bad as I feel every waking breath of my life.   

My words refuse to
be written.  Everything is in my head but
none will come out.  My thoughts peek
around the corner of consciousness to see if it’s safe to come out. 

And I think to the
mother right now.  Is she not my
mother?  Whose mother is she?  I don’t understand why she doesn’t love
me.  Was I not a good girl?  Did I not try to be the perfect child so she
wouldn’t be unhappy?  Why does she not
talk to me?  I tried to be good.  And there is a chasm in my heart where I
wanted her to be, where I wanted her to fill it.  But though she lives, we have no mother.  And I don’t know where I went wrong.  I must have disappointed her.  And that breaks the bits even more.

A sense of dread
percolates inside me.  I fear the worst
is stealthily prowling towards me, advancing on me, waiting to pounce
and take me as her prey.

Most telling of
this mood that has descended upon me was a social event I went to this
evening.  A group of unfamiliar women, a plethora
of wine, a buffet of indulging food, and a lively book discussion.  I was awkward. 
I do not have the skill of social interaction.  I know they thought I was silly and nothing
to contribute to the discussion.  And I feel
inferior.  I feel they all know that I am
damaged, split, and unfocused. 

A part of me can
almost live with the secrecy and shame of abuse, but I feel everyone knows as
if it is written on my forehead.  Any intelligent
person would have walked away from the book club tonight and thought that I
wasn’t “all there”. 

I know I will live
with the shame of sexual abuse for the rest of my life; but, dammit, I hate
that other people can sense it in me like a dog senses fear. 

I’m exhausted from
wreaking of sexual abuse and dissociation, yet Sleeplessness makes me languish in my stench.