It was too dark to see much of anything,  other than the silouette of a white sheer headscarf covering your face I was drawn toward the cavernous darkness, surrounded by a shadow, lit by the edges of the crescent moon The darkness gave me an eerie comfort, as I had been there many times before Thinking that shame had created every waking fabric of my being, knowing it was the pen that wrote many of my scripts or the patches on my quilt that completed me When I walked along side you, I could hear your footsteps, words are unnecessary, and I know the imprints of the past are behind me Why do you awaken so fiercely, when I am unprepared for your defening roar? Should I numb all my humanness, to keep from succumbing to the schoolyard scars? Your whispers unleash all my secrets, only known to me When you startle me, I become something foreign to myself What teachings haven’t I learned, that you persist like the plague? Can you not live without …