On nights when I scream the house awake, I don't look for solace within myself. My common sense and my trembling hands decide to "split the gang up", and my conscience and I are left to wander the basement of my thoughts without flashlights. We're afraid of our own shadows. This is a mystery that will never be solved.

This is to say, I'm not at home here.

This is to say; my mother's voice is the tethered rope that keeps me from succumbing to the gravitational pull of my panic.

It's not as easy as it used to be to pretend these are just nightmares.

It's not as easy as it used to be to pretend, I don't feel the burning.

It's as easy as it's always been to lie about it.

Grace's worried eyes are enough for me to pretend I am fine. Pretend I am just as confused as she is to why I end up on the bathroom floor, nightly. Vomiting up what little food I have sat for hours and convinced my mouth to chew and swallow.

I can remember a time where I hid my food under napkins. In pockets, and fistfuls. Saving it for later, out of fear I would not be awarded another meal.

I tell myself as often as my mother reminds me, I am always allowed to help myself.

But there is only so much convincing I can do before my tongue and my nose decide that everything tastes like skin smells after its been burned. Black and hardened. Dead, but hanging onto the beating cells like this is an all or nothing kind of tragedy.

My body rises from the bed and walks into the bathroom. I tell my mother I need to shower, and she doesn't question me. I'm soaked. I am covered in sweat and tears. And admittedly urine, if I can look my pride in the eyes long enough to subdue it. The totalitarian reign I had over my body is finished.

While every other part of me is convulsing chaos, my bladder did not choose to become the faithful steed and stick around to take orders.

My hands have turned to stone. Twisted and unnatural as they are, they make it to the light switch and illuminate the room. My torso prepares it's rebel appendages for the process of taking my clothes off. My eyes clock out and head to the break room of my heart in hopes that they don't catch a glimpse of the truth that waits in the mirror.

The truth is I am a ghost of the reflection I had before the battle started in my head.

And the truth knows nothing of who we were supposed to be.

I let the water run over this battlefield and regain conciseness. My lungs decide they have seen too much of the war reenactment and take my legs on a brief intermission. I sit in the tub and call scene on "The Death of A Crack Whore 2.0". The smell of iron invades my nostrils and my tongue lets the rest of it's comrades know it is rusting. Water pools around me as quickly as smoke would from a cigarette.

Every part of me lies in the linoleum and questions if this prison riot will ever end. My heart holds my head in my hands and asks just how long it will take before we let forgiveness crawl out of our hostage cell. The touch of a cold dead hand creeps its way into my memory and reminds us this will go on as long as it takes to see some changes around here.

My lungs scream in protest, and I know that this is the end.

This is the worst it's ever been.

I will die here.

And as soon as I have come to terms with this betrayal... it's over.

I can breathe again.

My body comes crawling back to me. And like a love-sick fool I take it into my arms without question. I give myself shelter, and pretend I believe that it won't ever happen again. My head stands at the door of my heart holding flowers as asking for another chance. We all agree we'll "work on it", and we don't elaborate on what "it" actually is.

The beast of my panic goes back into the cave my guilt created. I wrap my arms around my sadness and sooth it as many ways as I can. "Shush" it like a baby and hope it sleeps longer now that it's been well fed.

I can hear my father at the door. Asking for permission before turning the knob. My shame shields itself from comfort having never before known it's nakedness. He kneels beside the tub and hands me a towel. What it must be like to want to comfort someone you can't even touch.

He asks if I "remember what it was about" and I shake my head to stop my bitterness in its tracks. If I ever really got the chance to speak to Carrick, I'd tell him loving me less would be the best thing to ever happen to him.

"I wish you'd talk to me."

I close my eyes tighter in fear that the control I have gained would escape through my tear ducts at my father's words.

"There's nothing to talk about. Just a nightmare."

I stare at the ceiling and watch the bathroom lights flicker from yellow to fluorescent. I hear my father walking out of the room and soothing my mother's worried tone. I think of a time where a mother would have never come to see about the night terrors of a little maggot like me.

I lay there until the water turns cold. Until it soothes the small circular burns on my skin. Until I feel clean enough to let that angel of a doctor ever so gracefully run her fingers through my little boy curls, again.

I make my way back to bed, being sure to close my door so if I were to have another nightmare, no one would hear me.

It's just like Elena tells me. One day they are going to realize that I am more trouble than I am worth.

To turn my feelings inward, to show no emotion… to hide away, to not force Grace to put up with how disgusting I really am is the best advice Elena has given me. The only thing that helps me sleep at night is the promise that she would do anything to fix what's wrong with me. She says I just have to trust her.

I lay back and think about the way she touched me today. I think about how dirty it felt until she explained to me why I felt that way. She knows so much and says she can teach me.

I think about a cold apartment floor in Detroit and how that little boy probably never thought a woman would ever touch him like that. I think about the crack whore, and all those men she probably let touch her.

Sometimes I think when her soul left her body, a piece of it jumped into mine.