Being The Survivor Stinks.

I Want Her To Melt Into Me, Like Butter On Toast. I Want To Absorb Her And Walk Around For The Rest Of My Days With Her Encased In My Skin. I Want.

With A Secret Like That, At Some Point The Secret Itself Becomes Irrelevant. The Fact That You Kept It Does Not.

I Roll Onto My Side And Stare Out The Venetian Blinds At The Blue Sky Beyond. After A Few Minutes I'm Lulled Into A Sort Of Peace. The Sky, The Sky--same As It Always Was.

Hey! Shouts Camel. There Ain't No Woman In The World Worth Two Bottles Of Whiskey!

Afterward, I Curl Around Her. We Lie In Silence Until Darkness Falls, And Then, Haltingly, She Begins To Talk...she Speaks Without Need Or Even Room For Response, So I Simply Hold Her And Stroke Her Hair. She Talks Of The Pain, Grief, And Horror Of The Past Four Years; Of Learning To Cope With Being The Wife Of A Man So Violent And Unpredictable His Touch Made Her Skin Crawl And Of Thinking, Until Quite Recently, That She'd Finally Managed To Do That. And Then, Finally, Of How My Appearance Had Forced Her To Realize She Hadn't Learned To Cope At All.