The self taken back into hell... back to where moments held no breath and scenes outweighed her capability to process evil as it touched her. Some devils suddenly appearing in words and in those words she sees the child, cowering, cowering and having neither place nor any person to call home.

The self who feels evil too, as she looks down at the blood on her hands, hands that have killed - in her mind at least - the monster reborn. The monster she once slayed and yet like a Medusa's head keeps spawning, slithering sliding snakes... sending them out her way. Again.

The self who made it. Sure. Look at her now, look at the words describing beauty and oh the emotions of a heart allowed freedom to beat in harmony with another, to fly - oh to fly - and come to rest somewhere where flowers still have the fresh crisp smell of innocence! There's goodness and sunshine and laughter where her words play now. Children flutter about like butterflies and when they land on her hand it's to thank her for being the world to them, see? She made it paradise - this life begun in hell - she found the words and fought the death and made it here now, older and scarred but still, here now. Still.

The self intruded on. The devil monster snakes dropping into her morning and suddenly the walls closing in as she frantically searches for that one song just so she can divert the pain and reach the love and reach the sanctuary because her heart plummets into free-fall and the beats just stop and stop and she bears down alone hoping this is not her last attempt to get its pulse back.

The self who feels sweet so sweet relief, when her life is given back to her and they didn't beat her, they didn't kill her, not this time. And those afar leave her alone, she asks for silence and the struggle to regain the self they love. How can they - strangers connected by the beauty of her words - ever know the blackness descending, covering up, undoing... how can they possibly - having only ever known this self - connect with that other? The child sitting in corners, cowering in corners, withering like a flower left in a vase devoid of water?

The self crying tears trying to gather moisture and spill it in this vase; create her own salvation one more time, another time of rebirth - emerging from the withering to laughter and the joy of living. The story of her life out there for all to see. The little girl shared and read and the little girl comforted by teary eyes which also add to her tears, further sustaining her.

The sudden self when the evil thought creeps in: A devil in the story of her life - her life in some stranger's hands, and the lasciviousness... Why did she never think of this? Her pain and misery and cursed lifetime of trying to get past - and yet eyes reading and coveting the memories, salivating at her memories - why did she never think of this?

The self who cries tears for the children, tears for the child in her, tears for her inability to move from this moment - stuck in the moment as she was, as she was...