I hear that Nam. Last week was great. I felt happy for the first time in years. I felt emotionally connected with my husband, with my dogs. Then the bad dreams, the waking in early am hours, daring the sun to rise, dammit, rise. A tough Sat and Sunday. Upping my meds. A little Scotch to get me through tonight. Down to my last ciggie. Husband won't be home for hours. I savor the peace of aloneness that allows me to hide, but hate the emptiness. So I build an empire of Blank. Hating the guy on the bus who kept leaning on me in his sleep, openly staring at the little baby girl with the dark eyes taking in the light. I willed myself not to cry. To weep at that sweet picture of young father and daughter in their world of love and adoration. And I thought about my own dad, at the pictures that show the connection we once shared. Funny how things shift drastically. And suddenly we are strangers. And as much as I don't want to know him, to forget he gave life to me, to forget the rod and staff he bore with resilence upon my back. There is something that mourns. That fFeels like an orphan-child yearning for that which maybe never was in my waking years. I don't trust feeling, I shun it really. I am tired of the pain. The wondering. The anger. The thoughts of death. Of mindless computer images. Watching them bleed wishing it were my own blood. Feeling the itch and burn of my left hand, inside forearm. Ready for judgement, condemnation, a new beginning of the Fall. I hold my breath waiting for the Inside to dissapate to a lesser shadow.