I woke up this morning, a nightmare in my face, barely remembered, quickly repressed. Something inside me wants out, wants to be screamed out. I'm afraid of the truth, afraid of the past that I don't remember, knowing what I do, of the past that I do remember, the fears I have built up over the years, certain times and places, you can never go back, but as long as the past holds on, you can never go forward. Little voices talk, on the edge of perception, the edge of memory. Urgency, pain, a sense of something wrong again. I do anything to stop them. But still it comes 'round again. There is no escape, when you carry your own weapons of self-destruction, when the world is all too happy to offer up a million chances every day, to pretend to be stupid.

I woke up this morning, early again, just can't stay asleep, no matter how tired I am. And I am always tired, anymore. So much pain happens when I try to reach out, I just feel like sitting a while, 20 years or so. So tired. And I don't know why. I suspect many things, but nothing is certain. 20 years ago today, I stood upon foreign soil, so alone in a misery that came from nowhere, that nothing could dispell. 20 years from now, will I still be the same? confused and in pain? How many people will have come and gone, good friends I pushed away, too afraid of letting someone in, to the heart I don't even know myself?