Your actions so subdued,
The walls you'd built around yourself,
No others heard or viewed.
Your senses sharp and heightened,
Reacting to small cues,
Kept memories lingering in your head
No others heard your news.
Self protection served its purpose,
Of course, and that made sense,
But little did you know that,
It was all in the past tense.
Relief it was short lived, in fact,
The price that was to pay
Was that years had passed before your eyes
With not living in today.
So walls built strong like concrete,
Impermeable to most,
Restricted you so badly,
With the past a haunting ghost.
Those dreams seemed like reality,
Like you were still right there,
The terror you experienced then again,
Unjust and unfair.
In later years you found a way,
A chance to start again,
Each gentle step to live once more,
Crawling gently from your den.
Putting back the chaos,
That ran amok inside your head,
Gave you strength to start to live,
And deal with all the dread.
Then peace came there to greet you
Those memories stored away
No more you're trapped within your walls
You're living in today.....
Jan Scott