"Strangely quiet, but now the storm

Simply rests to strike again"



Lost in a sea of unknown faces

And I'm clinging to a faded orange life preserver

Old and tattered, but keeping me afloat

The cold waves beat incessantly against my face

As the todays fade into yesterdays and my dreams fade into nightmares

Of a little girl, lost in the darkness

The thunder making her heart skip

The lightning illuminating the fear in her eyes

And when I wake up, the monster underneath my bed is waiting for me

As the nights fade into days and my memories fade into nothing but entries in a diary

Like the one that she stole from me, that summer night when we were little

No more than babies, she five and I eight

The words would have swum before her eyes - she couldn't read yet anyway

It made her cry: the resounding slap as his huge hand connected with my little face

Sending me flying into the wall

Punishment for pulling on one of her too-tight pigtails

Which were always tied with the perfect pink ribbons

The ones that Mother always said I wasn't good enough to wear