there is so much to say thank you for, to ask for forgiveness for, to forgive for…

I don’t know who or what you are up there, I don’t know if you are just the mythologies of man or everything we all want you to be, in all of the different guises…

but I have been mad at you.

For a decade of October, I have cried each night in my sleep, reliving a rape in stop time motion and on an 8mm film reel in my mind.

I know that I grew into a strong and determined individual because of it, and that working through it gave me the only real direction in my life, but I was just a child when you crossed my path with him and children are supposed to be safe, loved, and happy.

Not broken, beaten, and hateful.

It has taken a decade of Octobers to stop grieving and mourning for my lost innocence and childhood and though I know each October will still be hard for me to swallow, I also know that over time it hurts a little less.