Maniac

Nightmares are back, so are the flashbacks. I am afraid to tell you,
afraid to tell you that the early afternoons are hard to breathe and hard to keep it all together. You like to think I am better and for awhile I thought so too, most days I am fine.
Panic just seems to creep up on me and when I wake up I don't remember where I am.
Sometimes the images and scents come back and the places he touched hurt and throb where the scars will remain, they hurt for no damn reason. It is as if my mind is briefly reliving the event over and over again.
Sometimes the only thing that helps is covering my ears and saying the same thing over and over again. Other days I sit in the laundry room and let the sound of tumble dry and extra spin drown out the rising hysteria. The nightmares don't wake me up screaming anymore, lately I wake up cold and tired and my head feels the same as it did the night he pushed me to the floor and my head it bumped the bed. The kind of nightmares that startle me awake more than anything, the ones where I wake up and the panic floods me. The nightmares aren't even the worst part it's the not knowing when reality starts and my past remains in the past.
I can't sleep with my hair down in long tresses anymore, it gets tangled and I can feel his fingers pulling hair away from my scalp. I always where it up these days. I scratch my arms again, when the hysteria threatens to destroy me and the pain brings realty back into perspective.
It's was better for awhile and now it's back.