Riverbeds

There are three fat magpies sitting on the tree outside my window. I am trying to focus on the three fat magpies. My heart has just been reminded of the dark places it has been taken and, oh God, it is so broken. I've heard that if you survive being struck by lightening, the change it leaves in your body draws lightening back to you again, and you are more likely to be struck again than those who have not been. I feel I've been struck and I'm so scared. Something happened and all of those first few moments of sheer panic and nausea and wanting to tear off my skin came rushing back and, "What the fuck?" what has been done to me? I am like a riverbed. Pain takes a familiar course and floods me in its rush. And fuck, I am forever changed and that demon river will always be there, even when it's all dried up, just waiting. Even when I think it's just a dusty old collection of rattlesnakes and tumble weeds. It's just waiting for lightening to strike, for a storm to fill it again. Oh God. Oh God. There are places in my heart that I'm afraid of. Places in my own fucking heart. How can that be? Is there no healing? Is there only pretensions of healing until something brings it all out into the bloody light again? I am so broken.