Trigger warning. This post contains themes of abuse.

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I left years ago now. I built a new life. I was in limbo for so long, but a new book (not chapter) finally opened as I turned the keys in the door of my new home. I have made it. I survived you.

I have been navigating what it is to have agency in my own home. To move freely through it without fear or upset. To know that finally after these years I can grow roots somewhere more permanent. Five moves in little over two and a half years had taken its toll. I was free but roaming. I was stuck in the in between with no firm foundations to build from. I couldn’t establish anything permanent because I did not know if and when my ground would shift again.

But here I am. The ground is steady at last.

The past month has been strange. Nice, but strange. I feel the energy within my world has shifted: the uncertainty of limbo is gently – and sometimes more abruptly – falling away.

Imagine my consternation then when I close my eyes for peaceful dreams. I dream I am with someone safe, but he turns into you. I know it is you not from your face, but from your back. A back that I know too well. By then, I am already screaming for help. But no help is coming. No one can save me from the memories. No one can save me from my mind. You turn and I see your face so vividly as if it were only seconds ago that we were beside each other. And it is one of those days where I look in your eyes and not a trace of a soul can be found. Your lips curl upwards in your mocking smile. To me it is the wild smile. The smile you would wear when your ears were deaf to my pleading. You never violate my ultimate physical sanctity, but you pin me down as you had so many times before. I am begging to be let go, my wrists and arms paining. You tell me to stop moving and that it is my fault that I have been hurt. I cannot escape you. You are too strong. Your voice continues to gnaw away at the vestiges of my mind – so ravaged that it’s like the polluted tatters of a flag that used to sing my virtue but now sings your vitriol.

I keep screaming for help. I scream and scream and scream and scream. And finally I am awake. I am alone again, in my safe haven. You are gone.