Tonight is the second night in a row now that the nightmares have followed me. I guess my mind is more cunning against even me than I wanted to admit it was. I wish they could just be like regular nightmares, but they aren't.
These are vivid.
It's like I am there again.
Like I can feel the hands on my body.
I can taste the vomit in my mouth.
I always wake up shaking.
I can't pull myself out from the nightmare.
I have no control.
They aren't dreams. They are memories.
I wish I didn't have to remember.

They used to be worse. I used to wake up screaming. That drew too much attention from my family and they don't know. They can't know. Somehow I stopped screaming and now whatever I may do, it's "better". That is a joke. There is no better.

Yesterday I was up at 3am, and again at 6 because of the sheer fear in my heart.
Today it was at 4am and I won't be sleeping again.
This is just the beginning.

Trying to go outside to smoke a cigarette and freak out where my boyfriend wouldn't be disturbed was a failure. Que sitting on my bed trying to breathe and quiet the sobs wanting to escape from my chest.
Once I got outside, my fear and paranoia only intensified. So I came back inside. To no avail.

I don't know what to do.
My boyfriend deserves someone better. Someone who isn't controlled by fear. Someone who isn't tainted.
Untouchable.
Unloveable.

I can't be that person.
I don't know how.

I'm just falling farther and farther away from something he deserves.

The paranoia I used to have is coming back again, and so are the panic attacks. I have been lucky enough to not have one when my boyfriend is around, so he doesn't know about them yet. Soon, he will. It is getting hard to hide them.
I contantly have a knot of fear/nausea in my stomach now.
I want to use my blade.

I don't feel safe anymore. I don't know if I ever have since my head started remembering.. Will I ever feel safe again?
I feel like my sanity is cracking and my boyfriend already has his own shit to worry about. He doesn't need mine too.
Should I leave?

I didn't even dare to hope for sleep after my nightmares, so instead I curled up next to my boyfriend. I listened to his slow, even breathing for a few minutes before the tears came back. I shoved them down and stuck in headphones to at least attempt to drown out the images that are burned into my eyelids.
As if I could.
As if I deserve it.

It is branded into my body. I feel like even if a stranger doesn't know, they know. Like some invisible sign, marking me as a target. Marking me as weak, as someone to be taken advantage of. This is not my body. I will not claim it. I cannot stand it.

I wish mu boyfriend didn't have to go to work today. I don't want to be alone, but there is nobody I can call. My best friend doesn't respond to my text messages anymore, and after school all the "friends" I had just faded away.
So most days I either spend sitting at his work waiting for the few moments I can see him or I am in my bed trying to cloud my head. There is no in-between.

I am entirely pathetic. This is what my life has come to, and I try not to look at it and see the truth because then I feel guilty. Then I feel ashamed. And that is a feeling I cannot deal with... So I avoid it. But it always comes back to the simple fact that

I'm alone.

That idea has never bothered me. But in the wake of times like this when I simply cannot stand to be alone, that's when I feel it.
And I don't know what to do.

I won't be sleeping again until I can figure out how to keep the dreams away. I can't even fathom the idea that I could go through that again.
I won't admit to my boyfriend that I need him.
I won't let the cracks show.
I'll pretend everything is alright.
That I am at least surviving.
It's just how it has to be.

I am fine.
I have to be.