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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Valley (08/10/06)
Your hands hurt me. Your nails
Gouging my arms, shoulders, hips.
Your smell was like dank socks.
Your weight pressed, hard.
I closed terrified eyes
And kicked against your muscles
Rippling black and taught
Beneath the hairless chest
That once held me close
As I cried.
I’d fled from home.

You rekindled a longing.

My breath caught, jagged and forced
Burning the length of my throat.
Coughing up vomit, aspirated and vile.
You were slow, long.
Through blurred vision
I saw paper flowers crumble as
Spilling tears refracted flickering security bulbs
Behind the dumpster.
Cotton candy drifted innocently
Across a gumdrop moon
Then vanished.

You tore my childhood.

A tortured groan echoed along walls
Stained with urine.
The sound, foreign, was my voice.
You wiped drool from your chin,
Flicking droplets into my face, mouth,
Then laughed.
I blinked, trembling, cold.
You escaped into a valley of darkness.
Yet I found light.
Flesh bruised, bleeding.
Spirit whole, unscathed.

You never knew me.
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This article has been read 1450 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Julia May
08/19/06
Wow - This was very painful to read but full of emotion. I hope it's not true but somehow I think it is. God bless you - So glad you found the light. In Christ's Love,

Julia
Helen Paynter
08/19/06
Immensely powerful writing (I know who this is). I love the twist at the end, where he goes into the dark valley, and she is in the light.
Amy Michelle Wiley 
08/22/06
Powerful! Well done.
Joanne Sher 
08/22/06
So, so tactile and dark. This was VERY hard to read, but masterfully composed. The pain is so real I can taste it. Amazing writing!
Venice Kichura
08/23/06
I feel your pain! Excellently written!
Barbara Ann Smith
08/23/06
This reader reads this piece as if written by a person who knew the immense pain, humility and torture suffered. No one but God and the person it happened to knows the suffering they endured and the lingering nightmares they must suffer. Isn't it great to know there is someone Greater to see people through such pain and suffering? By sharing this article, I'm sure it will help someone else to maybe share their story and to bring about a healing of sorts. God Bless.
Beth Muehlhausen
08/23/06
A wrenching thing to read, for sure...but I love the perspective of separation between the pain and the person. The valley of torture can bruise the body and soul but not destroy the heart. Excellent!
Edy T Johnson
08/23/06
This writer has a Masters degree (summa cum laude) in wordsmithing, just the right word in just the right place at just the right time. I am in awe.