wednesday after a meeting with H

i am
terribly frightened
most of the time
unless i am angry or something less than
honest with myself

i don't know if
it's lack of common sense or why
i would put up this fight
anyway

when it is so much
easier
to not
not
not
face the day.

I am on the witness stand. I am eighteen or nineteen years old. My father is in the courtroom. There is a class field trip to the courtroom why are they in here? I see only young girls not much younger than me even though there might be boys I only see the girls it is so so so so so hard to breathe and I think only of not crying and I think this is the first time I could not breathe and now it is like this a lot.

The man asks me questions and I answer the questions as I was raised to do straight forward and honest and you just speak the plain truth, ma'am. It is hard to do this because I am distracted by my heart throbbing in my veins and my shaking legs and my guilt.

The man asks me questions and I answer the questions I don't hear anything else but later in a room with my dad he tells me that was not good someone has made a mistake and the evidence is denied and there is only my word and nothing else and I am just small and full of shame.

My dad tells me that our friend will take care of this if I want but I don't think he really means that but I ask him anyway how our friend would take care and it's about what I expected. That is not who I want to be and suddenly I want very much to believe there is a god even though my dad does not believe there is a god or he's got a lot to answer for! says my dad and I latch onto maybe there is a god and God will just take care of this and I do not have to go back in that room

and say what the fat man did to me face down on the white carpet dirty hair because i have to finish a paper and no time to look nice i am alone in the house no dog no dad no mom no brother i am so small and i don't want to die and there is a recording when i dial 911 even though schools have told me all my life i think to dial this number in case of emergency and it is an emergency and there is only a recording

i am so full of shame.

I have been on the witness stand two other times in my life, both for divorces. Both times I thought I'd like to die but did not. There was no reason for this because everything was worked out before hand and we were only presenting to the judge. I made a big mistake about ten years ago and now I have to go back on that stand and it's not going to be a nice time and it's not going to be an easy time and there are going to be some pretty horrible things said and I know this is the right thing to do. I know.

but i am so full of shame.