2001-10-31 - 11:43 a.m.

How do you hold your head up high when the weight of the world is on your shoulders.

How do you smile and say everything is alright when 5 years of hurt is laying heavily on your heart.

What good is there in reminding others of what you're going through - you only remind them of your pain and get pity. Pity is not what you need, nor is the inevitable feeling of bringing someone else down in the muck and the mire of your depression.

How do you go on when everything that once seemed right and wonderful and beautiful and loving becomes an act of violence and agression and terrible terrible memories haunt you.

Why 5 years later does it still hurt as bad as the day it happened.

Why can I smell the stagnant air and the bodies and hear my own tears from the 2 hour bus ride in tattered clothes with a broken soul.

Why must I remember every detail, the blade of the knife, the harsh ropes, the fabric in my mouth, how it all tasted, sounded and felt.

Why does it consume me...why do I want to take millions of showers when I know it will never wash the dirt off my soul?

Why won't it just fade away.

Every song, every feeling of fall holds it and every year it haunts. I can pretend its not there all I want but in the dark chilling hours of the night I know its there.

And he doesn't feel this, he doesn't know this pain, this suffering, what he caused in my life, what mistakes he pushed me towards, what hours of agony he caused.

There's a burnt pile of cd's under a rock in a hidden place behind Gordon College, there are letters and memories and thoughts that I tried to burn and let go..but they're still there unscathed in my mind.

Must I really be alone tonight?