Tamara Lynch

Laying in bed last night I was startled awake by a sharp noise outside my window.  I still don’t know what it was, but the subsequent bark from my dog Max and then my thudding heart beat confirmed it was real.  In that state, it was difficult to get back to sleep.  And when my eyes closed, I immediately saw “the dark man.”  The dark man was my childhood imaginary killer that would stalk me when I went to bed.  I would close my eyes and see him coming for me with a knife.  It’s crazy to me that thirty years later he still haunts me, but he doesn’t scare me as much as he used to.  I can’t get rid of this obsessive thought about him cutting off my arms or legs, I can see it quite clearly in fact, but I can dismiss it for what it is, a scar from the trauma of my mother’s death.  I’m used to pushing away those thoughts, but they will always come back.  I just keep pushing.