It is an impossibly early hour on one of the few days I am allowed to sleep in. I should be nestled closely to my honey, sprinkling kisses on the shoulder I consider mine and sinking blissfully into that deeply contented rapture that is the trademark of our weekend mornings.

Instead, I am here, trying to stave off for just one more day the demons which stalk my soul and the ghosts that whisper in my mind. For those of you who aren't writers, I must explain: writing isn't merely a communication medium. It's far more powerful than that for those of us who use it as our art form. Between my mind, fingers and keyboard there is a flowing line of secrets, thoughts, fears and hopes. I know of no other way to BE in my writing than honest. And in return for my honesty, the medium gives me a safe, judgment free place to unburden my heart and let the chips fall where they may after it's all done. We are deep confidants and friends, my one small gift and I...and because of that friendship, I am allowed to know my own mind and be my own person.

I've had a lot to be troubled about over the last couple of weeks.

My sister and I set aside our tenative relationship this week for a time. This has left me wondering if there are things that are just too big to be overcome. My decision to leave my step-grandparent's home and family was one that I made, in large part, to spare her from what had happened to me. Looking back, I realize that I probably did it for no reason. I was not of thier blood and they knew this...which is why what I suffered at thier hands was justified in thier minds. For my grandfather, it wasn't incest....it was just a little underage sex. and for my grandmother and step-father, looking the other way was okay because, well...I was always studying and reading and thinking lofty ideas...I really needed to be taken down a peg. My sister was probably always safe.

It's amazing, the things that are said when you know a mind so well that not a word has to be spoken. I was a throw away child for them. Worth nothing. And looking back on the situation, realizing my sister was probably never in any danger, I find myself understanding everything with a sudden clarity.

They all knew. Of this, I've never had doubts. The grooming that goes into sexual molestation cases is loooong and arduous and increasingly less discreet. How many times, exactly, did they watch that man pat my butt and let his fingers linger there...at the age of fifteen? Or the push up bras and thong underwear given to an 11 year old (that she was later forced to model for him). The kisses that lasted too long and were in questionable places (how many times has your grandfather nibbled on YOUR ear?), the "encouragement" to watch soft core pornography and go commando around the house, the countless videos of my sunbathing or swimming in skimpy suits that he picked out for me...all of which, later, led to far more dangerous and damaging things.

There is no way one could not have read the signs. No way they could plead ignorance. So I've always wondered why it is that my leaving (and the subsuquent criminal charges/jury trial) were such a shock. Until I realized the overiding feeling in that family. I owed them. My mother was a meth addict, my grandmother thousands of miles away and my only other realatives besides those two wanted nothing to do with me. They took me in "by the good of thier heart" even though I wasn't theirs and that action should give them certain priveleges. If keeping my grandfather sexually sated was the price they demanded, I should have just shut up and let it happen. My betrayal to that family was in telling a secret they already knew all about not because it was a shock to them...but because I had no business speaking out after all they'd done for me.

I opened my mouth when I shouldn't have and ruined five other lives. My sister and brother being among them.

And here's the kicker: I've been conditioned so well that a tiny portion of my mind still feels guilty about that. My leaving that situation is seen by them as purely selfish. And the conditionaing I fight with on a daily basis...the rhetoric that tells me every morning that I don't deserve the life I've worked so hard for...agrees completely.

These are my demons and my voices. Dark, unforgiving and eternally noisome, they plague me at moments when I have no business being anything other than blissfully happy. I am deeply grateful for my life. A career I love, a man I adore and can lean on, a family of my own that I've built, friend by friend, piece by piece. But in the deepest hours of the night...I ultimately feel like it will all be taken away and given to someone far more deserving and worthy.

Because throw away children have no rights to expect anything.