I think it's time that I become absolutley honest with myself.

The years have passed so why do I still hold on to them? Why do I refuse to let go of the pain that no longer needs to be? Even as I write this, a deep heaviness draws over me. I feel old and used and fragile.

I think one of my greatest weaknesses is refusing to admit to myself that I have any. Every time an issue comes up in my memory, I always tell myself that I'll get past it. A few tears fall, and that's it, I rebury the confusion, the sharpness in my chest.

Now it seems that I have an oppurtunity to let the past go. Being in this new place has drawn a lot to the surface.

Most of the time I either don't like myself or I feel neutral to who I am, indifferent, sterile and loveless.

I want to dream and realize my dreams, but first I need to move on, move on from Edmonton and Saskatoon. I don't mean the cities themselves or the people in them. I mean what happened in these places. I mean the darkness I haven't quite made it out of.

In the worst of times I used to fantasize about killing people. Torturing them, tearing them apart. I now realize it wasn't other people I wanted to destroy, it was myself.

There have been many sleepless nights. I remember lying awake in my room in Saskatoon. It was old and decrepid. The roof used to leak when it rained. The lightbulb would always short out, flickering and flickering until it gave up all together. One wall had a piece of wood nailed to it, about 3 feet long and 1 foot wide. We never knew why it was there, but I always thought it was hiding something.

In my parent's walk-in-closet were old mattresses the landlord hadn't gotten rid of. On summer days I would dig into those mattresses for my dad's porn collection. I remember reading Hustler, wierdly excited and extremely confused.

Snippets, fragments, like broken glass on the ground.

I remember my first night in Canada. I must've peed about 10 times that night, waking up on the hour to pee in a vase in my dad's bachelor room. I didn't want to go out into the open basement, it was too creepy. I remember I peed on the wall accidently; I never told my parents about that. Even then I knew something was wrong. I think when I was young, I always knew exactly what was going on. I never talked much, always observing but making sure no one knew I was watching.

I was eight when I first gave up on life. Too scared of my dad's return, I stood in the kitchen with a knife in my hand.

I can't really remember when the abuse started, but it must've been shortly after my arrival in Canada. I don't remember most of it. Or rather everything is pretty vague, it all just flows into each other. I wonder where my mother was then. In her own world I guess. In her own world where I barely existed.

I remember my separation from her. I could feel her drifting away and I was scared but powerless to do anything. And then i just let her go.

I had no one in my life for a long long time. It was just in my own world. It wasn't a bad place, it was safe at least. And it was beautiful, really beautiful. I lived with the world, the soul of the world. In the grass and the trees and the insects and birds I grew. I fell in love with the earth.

For a time it was good, I learned to separte parts of my life. Darkness from light, the grey from the passion.

Then the anger came. How ruthless an emotion. It consumes you, it eats away at you until you're nothing left but a shell. And then the anger turns to hatred. First it's hatred to those who wronged you, but it doesnt stop there, it infects, it infiltrates every part of your life.

I stopped caring for anything. I convinced myself that nothing mattered, but it seemed that destroying myself was no longer enough. I had to destroy everything else as well before I was satisfied. The person I turned on the hardest was my mom. But she destroyed herself before I did it to her. That came as a shock. But it wasn't a surprise. The world was going to fall apart and it did, I knew something was coming before it came. Just as I knew this night would come, when all these things would begin to come to surface. It's why I'm here.

I still hate my dad I guess, some part of me enjoys watching him fall apart. I can feel him day to day, I can feel his confusion and his torment and a part of me loves it. I am angry at him, but I don't let myself feel the anger, it's such an useless emotion. i won't waste my time on that.

Now begins the season of looking within. These are the moments of discernment, of truth. I think it's time. I think it's time to be absolutley honest with myself.

But loss is a precious stone to me, a nectar distilled in time, that preaches the truth of winter to the fallen heart that never ceases to fall.