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Sitting here I wonder who am I? Do I even matter? To whom? I find myself feeling like I am nothing or maybe I should be. And if I am, what does it matter? I am screaming out from somewhere within too afraid to really be heard. For do I really have anything to say? Do words really have any meaning or do they just echo away somewhere? Silence without sometimes says more than any word may speak. For it is what lies in the eyes that screams what the mouth can never say.

Hiding within are truths that no one knows. Finding a way to bring these truths up and allow one's self to release what goes so deep and hidden in the darkest recesses of one's mind is like finding the one pebble in the sand that began the collection in the first place. Finding that one word that could allow the knob to turn and the hidden door to be opened for even one moment. For one moment turns into another, to another. And ever so slowly before you know it one word could turn into many until the secrets start to unfold and spill out from that place within. But the fear that comes with the word is so great it could start the avalanche that could bury one's heart without a sound or any notice it has taken place. To once again fall into a deep silence where one word does not exist.

What makes a word so hard to speak? What makes one unable to find that beginning word? What brings about such silence, such a fear to be? What were words back when it all started and what are words now? How does one find strength to dare to reach, to even look for the one letter that could start the one word that could release the secrets so deep, so dormant to one's mind. Knowing they exist yet buried so deep to save one's self from the harm that could come to the selves if revealed. Yet knowing the dangers it holds in the secrets that keep one trapped within their sick little games destroying one's very existence of self. All within screaming out in silence, minds fearing their own words, and somewhere that one word lies just waiting----just holding the key to opening it all.

So many all sharing different pieces of one heart. A heart that lies shattered amongst the shut doors, the silent echoes of words unspoken, the unshed tears afraid to fall yet burning the eyes from within, the eyes that tell what words leave unsaid, and the sharp pieces that float and cut like a knife at the slightest attempt to reach out. The voices of many trying to be heard yet retracting back as fast for fear of others within and rejection without. The price of telling is high, the act of trusting does not exist, and the lies choking the life line with every thought to tell.

What do you do when fear is all around? When the fear is real and not just a mind thing? When you get up it is waiting there for you. When you look around the corner but there are many other corners waiting. When you do what it is you are suppose to but not even that protects you. When the inside does not understand what exists outside of one's self. When there is something within not of yourself but working against everything you are trying to do? When you lay down to sleep and the night blankets you with the fears of the day, that could become life at any given moment if it has not already. When breathing takes on a new meaning-----is this the last one or the next----they all run together gasping quickly, silently crying help in words no one can distinguish.

Is this what life is? Running within never finding one's self? Can time stop what seems to take one's heart and where terror lives constantly in the mind that holds many within? You think and think and you search for just one letter that could make the one word that would crack open the lock placed so long ago and reinforced through fear, not of the past only but the present. Where did time go? One moment in time you were, the next will you be? Fighting hard to remain, to heal, to step forward. Grasping for the hand of a friend, for the will to go on, for a moment of safety. Still searching for the one word, just one----that would allow you into this nightmare. Would you even stay? Would you even want to hear? Or would you walk away?

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