06.30.2004 - 3:57 p.m.

I escaped on January 16, 2001. I've thought for a long time now that all my metaphors, my prisons and traps and rebuilding selves, were frivolous, were poetic licence, were unfair. I have held so much guilt for my blame and hate of a person I know was just a scared little boy, even if he did hurt me that much.

I haven't seen him since 2002, have not even needed to balance an invitation against his possible presence. He is just gone. But he stays in my broken moments, he surfaces in every deep conversation. Last night, it was him who made me scream myself awake.

(See how I've buried the source of this entry, with such an offhand remark, in shame, in disbelief. No matter, some part of this will be good for me anyway.)

To be honest, while the monster in my nightmare had his face, his body, and his manipulating voice, it was not him. The monster is a symbol, is a collection of things I feared long before he came along, all wrapped up in an appropriately triggering package. It has been a losing prospect, trying to unravel the pieces of this monster that were really his from the ones I added to simplify my recovery or just so I could blame someone else. I�ve done what I had to do, but I�ve never been comfortable leaving things that way, with all the causality and responsibility tied up in knots.

Maybe it's time to stop trying to be so honest about the source, now that I don't see him anymore. He will never know what I've grown to think of him. No mutual acquaintance will ever be forced to pick sides amid the mudslinging. Most importantly, none of what haunts me is him: I am over him, and I am over the hurt of him. It is only what "he" has come to stand for that remains to be dealt with.

So what does it matter what I name my private monsters, so long as it is I who names them, who confines them in their circles through their last dribble of power? If he wants prowl around in my subconscious, dragging up attendant horrors for my dreams, fine. I still can't stop him. But I am done with wondering what he really is.

The true source of nightmares is always unknown. This has never bothered a nightlight.

-stonebridge

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