You're asleep and now I can not sleep. In fact, I am so wide awake it is quite jarring, because I was finally sleeping when you came to bed, drunk and naked. Why? Why did you come to bed like that? You did do the noble thing and not sleep with me, though you put some good thought into it. Did you finish all the beer in the fridge before you decided to pass out next to me. I should have probably let you take me to a hotel, but hotel rooms are sad places when you're alone, or at least I think so, and I am scared to sleep in a room by myself most days. Esspecailly ones that are strange. I know why.

I thought about calling a cab and leaving while you slept, because along with being a theif, you are right, I am a coward. It's true. I am. I have left so many men that way, you have no idea, but I have no idea where I am, because I wasn't paying attention while we drove around. Which was silly and trusting of me.

I was having that dream I have sometimes when you came to bed. Lately, I've been having it more.

I am small. I feel small. Very small. Three or four. There is a white Buick parked in the back yard of the house that when I see it now I called it in my head the awful pumpkin house, and I am standing in the grass alone. I feel very much alone too, because at that age I understood aloneness in a way I don't think any child should. It is because of that, that I am such a easy target for the drunk Indian man (or should I call him Native American as perhaps it is rascit to refer to the man who raped me at four as Indain? Or in this case, is it okay, because after all, he raped a four year old girl who was just in the back yard trying to have childhood games and sing songs and be alone as often was the case at that time in my life). I don't realize that he is in the back seat of the car, because I don't have to always be on edge yet of strangers. No one has talked to me about strangers. And, he is not really a stranger. He lives with his girlfriend next door in the small apartment of the pumpkin house. She is pretty. I remember her being very pretty. Long hair and round glasses. Often in shorts and black tops. He asks me if I want a piece of candy. It wasn't candy though, it was a lifesaver. Peppermint. I hate peppermints now. Perhaps that is why? His cock was hanging out of his shorts. It was the late 70's and even men wore fairly short shorts then, but perhaps these were too short for good taste, since his cock was clearly visible. And, he had on a white shirt. I don't remember what I was wearing, which is odd because I have a memory of details like that usually. I also don't remember what happened in the backseat of that car after he pulled me into it. When I try and remember this is all I can remember about the actual incident and even that feels fuzzy like a grainy picture that could have been taken during that time. What I do remember after that was somehow my mother finding out and calling the police and when we got there, I stayed in the car while she screamed at that man and it was like the first time  ever heard her voice. I mean really heard her voice. And, the van was white an had no windows, so i am lucky maybe that that was not what he pulled me into, because perhaps he would have done worse things to me. Things I would have remembered now. I also remember walking down a long hospital hallway with my mother but I don't remember seeing the doctor, but I know I did, because they needed evidence, but then no one did anything to that Indian man, because at three of four, I wasn't a reliable witness. I remember my mother being very angry about that. Insanely angry, but not fighting them much. Or maybe she did.

I believe I read once, that after a child is sexually abused that the chances of that child being abused go up quite a bit.

And, my chances just kept going up and up, but I will tell those stories later.

There is that tradition of confessionals. Or is it more of a reglious thing? Either way, now it is time to write all those things that I have kept back inside myself. What I will not utter out loud. Perhaps, you should stop reading now, Dear Reader, because it's going to become very ugly and dirty and messy in a way that is not art at all but something else entirely. I know you though. You will keep reading, won't you. You already know that these things happened, but you don't know the details. You don't really know how bad they were. How much the ruined me for you, For me. For everyone. But, now, it feels like it is time to drag them all back up to the surface and face them down and you may as long go on that ride with me. Or not. I don't really care. I realized I didn't really care when I wanted to hit you really fucking hard in the chest while you were sleeping just now and stopped myself, because that's not really a kind thing to do, is it? No, it's not at all.

I don't think I totally understand what defense mechanisms are exactly. Or walls. Or whatever it is that I use to keep people from getting too close. What I do know is that I wish I had had them when I was four, and six, and seven, and nine and fourteen. Perhaps they would have kept me safe then, and allowed me to be okay now.

I don't want to worry about love anymore. I'm over that longing and all the sadness it brings. I can be sad enough all by myself. I'm tried of people hurting me even when they don't mean too.

When you told me that many other people have felt that close to you,I was reminded that really no one is special and there is no reason to think otherwise. Not anymore.

What's sad though. Is I thought that maybe you felt that close to me too.