FEAR

There are nights that I lie down to go to sleep and he is there. It is like a movie reel and I can see everything; all four years in slow motion. I watch as he chisels away at me until I am a sculpture; his sculpture. I let him take me away from my self one little piece at a time. I think how could I have been so stupid? How could I have let it go so far? Why didn't I just walk away when I had the chance; while I still had my dignity. There are nights that I lie down and he is there and I am scared. I am afraid for my life. I am afraid that he has finally come to get me. I know one day he will find me. One day I will open my door and he will be there. It makes me feel nauseous with fear. I think if I saw him I would immediately throw up. I plan my actions step by step "in case of an emergency". I have it all planned out. That is what is so bad about domestic violence. The abuser, he never goes away. He is there when you are asleep and he is there when you are awake. Some days I think...I am free; he cannot touch me anymore. Sometimes I don't even think about him and forget that he exists. But I know in the back of my mind that this is dangerous. It is when your guard is down that they attack. It's when you think you are the safest that they present themselves. I cannot forget this man who tried to kill our unborn child. I cannot forget this man who took every ounce of dignity from me. I cannot let it go. It haunts me; he haunts me. I am in hiding from this man. That is what led me to where I am now. I left my home, my friends, my job, and my life just so that I could be safe. I don't do a very good job at being anonymous. I have too much passion and too much to say to be silent for too long. That is what he hated most about me....my big mouth! If I don't speak it will eat away at me until I am only a skeleton with no brain; no heart. I could not survive. I put on all this weight because he cannot find me when I am fat. He will not recognize me if he does think he has found me. I will be safe. When I start to lose weight I begin to panic. I am afraid he will recognize me if I lose the weight if our paths should cross. He begins to haunt my dreams and I start to live in fear again of the inevitable. It is very scary to know that no one can protect me. Sometimes I am so afraid. I am tired of living in fear; but I am afraid. I try to be strong and just pretend it never happened. I think "he is not going to get the best of me", "he is not going to control me when he is not even here". But...he does. That is what fear does; it controls you even when danger is nowhere around. There are nights that I lie down and he is there. He is hitting me again; he is pushing me and I am screaming "you are going to kill our baby" and then everything goes black. There are nights that I lie down and he is there and time is frozen and I am frozen and my life is frozen. I cannot move; I cannot breathe; I cannot get away; he has a hold of me and I can't get away. I don't understand why he won't go away, why he keeps haunting me, why he can't let me get on with my life, why he can't give me back the freedom I had before he came into my life. There are nights that I lie down and he is there and he tells me his famous line "I will never let you go". There are nights that I lie down and he is there and I wish it was all a dream; I wish he was all a dream; I wish my past was all a dream...