(This dream a result of a day spent in triggers with no joyous ending, no numbing, no comforting touch. Just me drenched in sweat, stinking of adrenaline as I attempted to rest. These are not uncommon but been much worse since sober…also a great deal more graphic that shared, not only in events occurring but in embodied experiences: I felt the water as I swam/kayaked, smelled the baked goods/blood, felt my body like a cage because of the drugs, saw full color spectrums, experienced terror, even felt the grabs and throws to the ground. No I didn’t watch a horror movie before bed, in fact I abstain. Those things are for people privileged enough to not know true terror. I even keep dramas to mid day and watch comedy or childish things at bed time to keep things light.)

Simple kayak trip. The kids were small. Beautiful rocks abundant. Swimming and splashes like any family would do in such a relaxing place. My parents were there but not mine from this life. I was young again, too. Not yet a teen.

The island we were on was the habitat for a horrid man and his sick friends. Their resort let us feel safe… until he was done with the visitors before us. Only I had peaked in the wrong window seal…

He was perverse. Drugging in the food to gain control of the psyche. Raping men and women while doing things like pealing their skin off. Letting his rough handling cause them to bleed while inside them. People from the town would come to join in the tortuous fun.

Two men hardly escaped from the group before my family’s time came due. I was made to watch as my mother and father were made to harm each-other then turned into bloody lumps dead and discarded. The woman from before that was still alive was forced to abuse my brother and sister… after baking the drugs to keep them complicit.

I lay in a ball, stuck. I had tried the windows and doors as the events took the lead abuser’s attention. Nothing budged. The people there to observe laughed and laughed. He grabbed me by my hair and threw me down. I cowered in fetal. Cried out: please I have had enough pain this life. Please not me…How could he not be exhausted after all I had seen him do in one night?

He laughed boisterously: run free, see if you can find it.

The door flapped open. I bolted into the night. No moon. Only a cat at my back. Even it seemed delighted at my fearsome attempt. I ran and ran but somehow woke near the hellish house again. My tree top spot kept me hidden enough to slip away in the dawning light.

From the edges I watched as the man who had been stuffed in a dog cage nude was dragged from town back down the drive by an officer of the law. The other that escaped professing the terrible things and why change must be made. Meanwhile, another cop grabbed me up by the nap of my neck.

Laughing: he said he’d let some think they were free. Never thought I would get first go at something so clean though…

In the kayak to cross the waterway between I asked: why would you help these terrible deeds? I just wanted to get away…

Chuckling filled the air: so do we but we are stuck so instead we torture any that come near.

My tiny hands began pushing him away as he advanced. His weight knocking my air out. All I had was his eyes within grasp. So I dug my fingers in as deep as I could. One eye popped out, but he never made a peep.

Then I awoke still trembling.