That moment when you screamed in genuine terror and you only heard the terror, that is how my life is lived.

I have tried for ages to suppress my fears, but every night they crawl all over me and build their silken threads in my hair.  I have never heard my own scream.  But short-coated, serious faces tell me that my screams reverberate against the glass walls of my prison in hourly bursts.

I remember thinking prisons were concrete and heavy, inescapable yet safe, protecting you from the outside world. When I shot a man through the heart and I was dragged away with flashing lights, I did not fight.  They would cast me behind thick walls where I would be sheltered forever from my nightmares.  

I know now that fear can enter inside even the strongest prison.  That nightmares are not kept out by prison walls. Nightmares are the walls. 

photo by anita jean.