Have you ever woken up countless times in the middle of the night, because you swore you felt him sit down on the edge of your bed?

If so let me help,

They tell me all I have to do is repeat “Shut up… it’s all in your head.”

Day light will come soon enough and then maybe you can finally go to sleep.

But darling you must not sleep to long, they will think you’ve really lost it.

Darling please wake up now, before they drag you to your casket.

Where a nice lady looking up over her glasses will tell you,

These pills

Will help you find it.

I’m glad you woke up before anyone noticed you were still in bed a quarter to 7.

When you get ready put down that lipstick, you don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression.

Stay out as long as you like but remember you’ll be alone in your room tonight.

And the night will never be late,

No matter who you ask to stay, or how much you pray.

The street lights will always come on.

These are the tall, dim, orange lights that will guide your pain in fear home.

 7:40 the sun will set, 7:45 fear and pain will surround you.

At 3am, when you’re finally home

You’ll doze off.

 And they’ll come to your dreams, laugh in your face and whisper...

“You think we wouldn’t find you?”

They say “We see you glance at the dark window behind you.

Together, we are the eyes you feel burning down your spine.”

Fear says “We are the glare of that cars headlight, which just quickly crashed across the glass of the front door.

Did you see how it formed a shadow on the wall in the corner of your eye?

It was a perfect walking silhouette,

And if we do it enough times it looks like him pacing.”

Then pain whispered “I’m so sorry about the leaves crunching, it wasn’t him it was me.

We won’t go away until you write, speak or paint."

Fear shrugged and said “It’s no trouble for us your sobs are so faint.”

A month later I wrote:

What I would give for a concussion, the kind that quickly leads to memory loss.

What I would give to appreciate falling leaves, shooting stars, and any other cliche thing you've ruined for me.

What I would give to experience forgiveness,

To feel that I let go of you and what you did to me.

To feel that I let go of the young confusion, and mature realization, of the advantage you ripped from my small hands, and the little bit of strength that left every time you touched me again.

But my hands are big now, big enough to punch you the last time you tried to take that last bit of strength I had.

I punched you, in the dark while you tried to run away.

I knew this had to almost be over when the darkness leads my fist to your face.

Since then my voice has gotten stronger.

So when I sat in front of the police officer,

I used my strong voice to enunciate my story.

I dozed off that night when fear and pain came to visit.

They said "Don’t wake up,

We don’t plan to stay.

We just wanted to say a few more things before we went away.

Regardless of how many times you’ve wished you and him dead,

Don’t worry about the heavens letting you in.

You are stronger then you’ll ever know,

The angles themselves told us so.

Now go ahead

The last step was to paint,

Go paint those lips red."