It won't go away

I've been doing pretty good lately.  Squashing all the sad stuff, even the anger.  But squashing everything really.  If I feel happiness then it will connect to the sad very soon.  If I feel contact with someone, it will connect to emptiness.  Tonight I finally slowed down enough, breathed deep and took a little walk to the water.  The night was perfect.  The air was still and just right.  Not humid, not warm, not cool, just very inviting.  The moon hung low, topping the horizon like a Christmas ornament.  The animals were busy doing their night work.  The people were asleep.  Peace.  And then I came to edge of the swamp and the reality set in.  The memory of searching.  The memory of late nights wandering aimlessly, wondering if I could find a clue to what happened or some meaning to all of this.  Nothing.  No clues.  No meaning.  Searching shouldn't be such a stained memory, right?  Just looking.  Just wondering.  Perfectly normal.  Just another day.  Another night.  But there was no eating.  There were screams to God.  There were tears and pleading with the empty air, begging.  There was regret and fear in each of those steps.  What could I have done differently?  What could I find?  Sleeping was hollow.  Dreams were vivid and more alive than the emptiness of life.  Those days scarred me.  Because even though it seemed unreal because we didn't know yet what had happened, once we found out, reality was warped.  This should never have happened.  Am I typing these letters or are my fingers sucking each letter up off the screen and erasing all there is?  Reality is twisted.  She is alive and I am dead.  My children are happy and life is moving right along as it should.  How can a man come into my life and destroy all I have built?  A man with no integrity and no value.  He is not real and yet his mark upon my life is real and forever.  How can he touch my forever?  Who allowed this worthless slug in?

I used to walk to the water's edge and know that just over the water were my daughters, doing ok, despite the tragedy, they were great - just across the water.  It made me forget the scars that the water gave me.  But now, it's just me and the swamp.  No more silver lining.  No more daughters.  They disappeared, almost like their sister.  How could my creator who I have worshipped so earnestly, allow this to happen?  Is this all to forge me into some strong material, able to withstand great battle?  That mission is a failure as I am hardened, and surely could destroy an enemy, but my heart is hollow.  My threshold for pain is high, and I can take many of the enemies blows, and keep my focus, but my love is a distant memory.  What good is strength?  What good is victory - if I am to share it alone?  I have been forged into a machine.  One that recognizes it's humanity and the emptiness of that and is then its disabled temporarily, but soon back working again and ready to do some foreign bidding that will someday soon take the rest of my life.....

This should not have happened.  I insist that it DID NOT happen.  Anjelica is away, but coming back.  She was lost but is found - healthy.  Making much of this life.  I see it when I close my eyes to sleep.  What is that world there?  Just as I fall to sleep, I see something desperate and alive but sometimes shreaking, sometimes loud.  Always scary.......