Like so many of my clients, childhood memories are allusive and the allusivity of them makes them suspect. As someone who relieves childhood experiences through the accounts of family members, I wrote a fiction piece based on some of the stories. 
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At night she falls asleep to the peaceful sound of quiet.
Her small world revolves around the safety of her bed.
She is awakened by the sound of home as it really is.
During sleep she can believe that the peace is real.
Like believing that the beauty of fresh fallen snow will remain forever.
The laughter that followed the Conqueror and the Conquered in the door
has been replaced with the shrieks of hatred.
The sound of splintering lives is like intermittent peals of thunder.
The others now come in and tell her it's okay.
"Go back to sleep, Baby.  It's alright."
One hides, feigning sleep.
One sits and shakes in her outrage.
Some take another chug or drag or pill.
Each of their hearts are shattering,
like so many glasses thrown and broken into shards on the linoleum.
At some time in the night the quietness has returned.
She shifts in her security to see the others.
The Conqueror lays beside the Maiden.
Why does he lay with the Maiden?
Where is the Conquered?
Never mind.  She's glad he doesn't lay with her.
The sunlight amazingly comes in the morning.
All were unsure whether the sun would shine again.
Downstairs pieces of the broken lives are being swept up.
The Conqueror reassembles the jagged pieces of yesterday.
While the Conquered slumbers.
She is greeted in the morning by a maiden with a sad grin.
"Never mind it all, Baby.  It's alright now."
She smiles wearily wanting to believe.
Finding she has no choice,
she sweeps it away as a new day dawns.

Yesterday came calling, yet again
You know how it does, like a fair-weather friend.
Sometimes it says how great things appear
Sometimes it whispers failures in the ear.
Can't trust in Yesterday to tell the truth
Today is the day that holds today’s proof.
The past is the past and that's where it should stay
Fear, weakness, and failure, that's not what remains.
To stand and stay there, to stay and be true
What remains is love and assurance too.
That whatever will come and whatever will be
Is all designed and up to me.

This is a piece about grappling with life's uncertainties and feeling like there must be more.

There comes a time in everyone’s lives
Where they need to consider and decide.
Am I truly all that I can be?
Is there more to me I do not see?

Have I tried or have I not?
Have I run the race?
Have I tried to climb?
Have I fallen to be caught?
Have I tried or have I not?

Remember being as little children
Not afraid at all to explore
Every nook and every cranny
The next best treasure in store

Change is hard and so is growth
Live a life worth living with both
Without either we are just a speck
Of all we could be and effect.

I will run the race,
I will try to climb
I will fall and be caught
By my divine.

This is a deeply sad piece for me to read. It is a reminder of my almost instantaneous regret of my impulsive marriage. I was seeing my hopeful decision crumble in front of my eyes, and everyone else’s. I fought for over 20 years.
 
It's amazing, truly, what a person will do
To keep what they really want and shouldn't have.
To keep what they really want and shouldn't have ever had.
The humiliation that burns your cheeks like firebrands
straight from the coals.
The shame of your nakedness before the ones you most admire.
All this and more a person will subject themselves to.
Why?
Why?
Is there not a cool spring to dampen the cheeks and refresh the heart?
Is there not a beautiful robe to cover shame and make presentable?
Yes, there is a spring of refreshment and a robe of presentation.
There is a hope that comes not from wanting what we shouldn't have,
But from receiving what we really need.
​

Oh boy...I'm reading this for the first time in decades. I don't know when I wrote this piece, but it was long before I understood that I was in an abusive relationship. At this time, I hope you can decipher, I'm blaming myself. I'm assuming that the problem lies in my ability to connect with my husband at the time. Nothing, I know now, could be farther from the truth. These were his words to me to begin to chisel at my understanding of self. The marriage did not end up the way the last few lines depicted. And oh man...did I try!

"I'm so tired of this"
Isn't that what I say
Every time I feel like just running away.
That's what I'm best at
I wish it weren't true;
Especially good at running from you.
When closeness comes
Up go my shields
I can't risk closeness and all that it yields.
My heart has been broken
By those who knew better
Now it's closed to the one I'm pledged to forever.
My hope is one day
You'll see who I am
And you'll open this heart and hold it in your hand
​.

I wrote this when I was disenchanted with my now long-gone marriage. I was lied to by media, society, church, and people in general. So, the shattering referred to in this piece is about the pain of reality. And I'd like to add that we also carry around not just positive delusions but so many more negative! I challenge you to shatter the delusions of your youth. You are NOT what your negative "tapes" or "voices" want you to believe. Trust me, you can be safe without those negative beliefs! Your little child within doesn't believe that, but, if you can begin to, you'll be free.

We all are made to believe
What others have said is the truth.
When we find their illusions are delusions
It shatters what we believed in our youth.

People are not always what they say.
And the truth is hard to see,
But we can't let that break our hearts,
Remember we are not all free.

People will come and they'll go,
Our families and friends will fail
We can't rely on this world for peace
Look inside your heart and exhale