by Sarah Ackerly

Dreams of you haunted me for a lifetime for a life hidden and wrapped away in my mind until., one day the fear emerged from her hiding place And flew into anger splattered against the walls of Other ears not hearing Ears not wanting to hear such unkind words.

Too many years have passed since I've carried your nightmare Alone. In silence i hid that secret i did as you told me like a good little girl still plagued by that nightmare and every year every moment that i was alone with our secret a part of me shriveled up inside died daily and took my self away from me killing the little girl that i was Becoming.

Crusty memory seeped in my blood Blood that I wish had been yours since the crystal split Open revealing the ways you have maimed and taken my life... You have taken our lives you have taken the lives of my sisters and brothers you took me as i lay there unable to look at you above me i stared at the sleeping child who lay across the room from me and i wanted to hide from him.

i was wanting to hide what his father was doing tome i tried to protect him with my silence feeling he should not have to know the torture and violation of my spirit

But little sleeping brother and sister in the waking hours you were his victims too wounded.:. by the cruelty he carried in his hands killed.,. in the hands of your own father

such a father has no right to be anyone's father (but he is yours) has no right to live taking the lives of the ones he was supposed to love..

The atrocities are leaping forth from rotting stench Grown over the years of scars he's left in our swollen eyes still in memories the tears Still the tears my friend have at last begun to fall over us healing our little bodies left behind him all piled up in pain.

And still the little girl who's hurting  Still the dreamer and the dreams., that have frightened you in the darkness of other nights Cannot hold you as tightly as I will hold you now so you can run freely from the tangled up lies that twist.

twisting that lie Lying in your memory And little brother And my sister in the waking hours try to hear the words inside I'm screaming And I'm singing the words Breaking the silence open are for you and they are for me wandering through the shadows of last night's dreams....

12 September 1987