8-24

Glimpses into the past today. 

A scene of violence that makes me shake with the urge to intervene, but all I can do is stand in the doorway and use my Calm Voice. Sir, you're scaring people.

For a moment it seems to get through to him and he pauses, for a moment he looks ashamed, and it's enough time for the boy to put space. 

I pulse with the desire to do more but I cannot leave my post.  

Much later, when the police have come and taken the sheepish man whose temper has blown away with consequences, I wonder what will happen to the boy. 

Strangely you jump into my mind. I think I know what you would have done, and I see it so clearly I swell with panic. A part of me wanted you to be there. A part of me knew if you had intervened I would have gone blind with terror and I would have left my post in the doorway and disappeared inside my animal.  

I am shaking still and I wish you were there to hug me. 

I think of the time in the store when the nameless anxiety was swelling up and I asked you to hold me and, for once, you didn't question it, you didn't become aware and uncomfortable, you just put your arms around me and the fear subsided. 

I wanted you to hold me much longer but I knew how you hated to be seen loving me and I let you stop. 

It stabs at me, these moments remembering when you were soft, following a night that brings up too many bad memories.