I am 14;

I wake up in a cold sweat; sober.

For 7 seconds, I see my ex-boyfriend’s silhouette in the corner of my bedroom;

The memory of a monster with two faces still ringing in my ears.

…………………………………

Iam 16;

I stand in between my mother and a screaming soldier, who I have learned to call grandfather.

I am 16 when I make him and his favorite son leave.

(It will be 12 years before I remember this.)

……..

I am 16 and I hate this place.

I am 16 and I do not remember my own  dreams.

I am 16 and monsters are coming back  from the middle east.

……..

I am 17.

I wake up on sleeping pills and SSRI’s.

The monster has three faces now.

I am 17 and we are still in the middle east.

…………………………………

I am 19.

I wake up hungover on bottom shelf vodka, the empty plastic bottle eyeing me from the corner.

I am 19 and we have always been in the middle east.

I shrug off the exauhstion of fighting a four headed monster and try to push my body through an upperclassmen history course.

I am 19 and monsters are teaching my coursework about their victims.

………………………………..

I am 24. I bury my college textbooks in the back yard.

Dreams have always been nightmares;

So I bury them.

I change out the trauma stained sheets.

The monster gains another face.

Maybe rage will save me where reading has failed.

……………………………….

I am 28 and I can not remember a night I was not terrified to fall asleep.

I am 28 and the doctor has pity in her eyes.

The Hydra behind her has so many faces it has been years since I could remember who they all were.

…………………………………..

I am 28 and I have never been young.

I am 28 and I am 12.

……..

I am 12 and I  have always been at war with grown men.

I am 12 and I am old.

I am 12 and somehow the monster already has too many faces to count.

……..

I am 12 and I am going to survive you.

I put a towel over the puddle the sweat of night terrors has soaked through my sheets.

I am 28 and I am still surviving you.

I am 28 and monsters are coming back from the middle east.