I have been lost in the dark
I have been lost in the dark….lost in my addiction….lost in my insanity, my pain, my grief. I have been lost, a throw away, a nothing. A child of the street.
A slave to the darkness was I.
Most of the time, I was invisible to the “good people”. I was junky thin, reeking of death and despair, my withdrawing body shaking. I was dying slowly in full view and they would glance quickly over me, across my face, pretending they did not see me. My fellow humans would walk past me. I did not exist. I was invisible. My sins to great even to be…….
A slave to the darkness was I.
When the “good people” did see me they forced me to become invisible again. I was not even considered human by some. I was denied a place to sit or rest. I was denied water on hot summer days when my thirst was so great I could no longer swallow and my exhausted body would almost faint. I was denied a place to refresh myself or relief myself, instead using bushes and running behind building and risking arrest for my need. Debased and ashamed I sought places to rest only to be chased away again and again with the threat of imprisonment if I did not “move on”. I was told NO you cannot come into this store, NO you cannot shield yourself from bitter wind, NO you cannot get warm here, seek shade here, or ever, ever rest. You must make yourself invisible again because you are too disgusting. You do not belong. Not fit to view or consider. You are not a human-being. You are an animal.
A slave to the darkness was I.
To some people though, I was quite visible. Predators saw me clearly even when I did my best to hide. They hunted me in the dark…..animals, hunting animals in the dark, on the street. These memories are too painful to recount. To be trapped by one of these meant rape, murder, or death…..so I spent a great deal of time running, hiding, afraid…….I’ve been raped, tortured, pimped and beaten. I have been emotional and physically used and abused. My value was reduced to my vagina and nothing else about me mattered to anyone. Some days, most of those dark days, not even to me.
A slave to the darkness was I.
I was visible to the tricks when they required sexual gratification but became invisible again after the fact. I was also invisible to them if we came across one another in public even though just days before they may have sworn to help me in any way they could. Many claimed to care, to love me, to be my friend yet only when they desired sex was I visible. Still, I welcomed them because the only relief from the physical agony of the street and my addiction was when I prostituted my body and was able to slip inside a cool or warm car. The only way I had to bath was when a John got a seedy room for an hour. I had to put back on my filthy rags, more often than not throw away my shameful underpants, always carefully hiding them somewhere in the bathroom or stuffing them in my pocket so my “client” would not witness to my personal decay. I would pass the time and cover the shame by praying “please God, let this be over soon”. I would hold on the truth that the act brought the money that I, or we needed to get more crack and that meant that soon, very soon the agonizing pain of my being, of my existence would end shortly and I would once again be numb, gratefully numb. I would finally once again be dead inside and it was only in that death of mind and spirit in which I could comfortably dwell. It was the only time I was safe from myself and my conscious.
A slave to the darkness was I.
I was visible to other addicts, other street people. They recognized my despair and loneliness and they fed on it. I would provide money, cigarettes, food and shelter and dope to those who professed to be my friend. They, in return, would make promises then vanish with all that I owned onto the darkness. Even those who said they loved me, in the end, encouraged me sell my body while they waited for me in the dark. I step from the car still lost in my own filth, reeling and in pain from yet one more act of degradation. No words of sympathy ever came. Just “how much money did you get?”, “how much dope do you want?”, then a flurry of phone calls and activity, then the tense, unbearable waiting. Finally, the dope. My body sick with the want of it. My emotions, out of control. My need to be numb, overpowering me. He moves deliberately slow….him, taking the first hit. Is it real? Is it real? Finally! My turn, his turn, my turn, his turn. On and on until there is no more. We have to have more! We cannot stop! There is no choice so out into the darkness walk I. We tell ourselves this is the last time. We will stop after this. Freezing, one more time. Raining, one more time. Blistering hot; one more time. Day or night. ; one more time. Dangerous wee hours of the morning…one…..more….time. I AM AFRAID and the addiction lies “One more time”.
A slave to darkness was I.
There is no choice you see. We have to have more. An endless cycle of “one more time”, “one more hit” When at last I can endure no more and my body collapses, after hours of sleep deeper that death I awake to my lover who looks at me calls me whore. I run back to the street and bring him what he desires so he will stay with me. More money, more dope so we can forget that we are lost and dying in the dark. I am afraid because time is fleeting, one week, one month, one year, five then ten then on and on. A lifetime up in smoke, one hit at time, one more time.
A slave to darkness was I.
I remember, very clearly my reemergence from the dark. It was when I became visible to people like you. You know, those of you who see me as a troubled person, an addict, someone who needs help and deserves love. Those of you who see me as a lost daughter, a lost sister, a lost mother. Those of you whose love of transcends those narrow, cruel societal views of me. Those of you who look into my face and say “I see you and you are beautiful to me” with an understanding smile. Those of you who dared to touch this leper. Those of you whose loving actions said “I love you and I am here to help because you deserve help, not hate.”
A child of The Light am I.
I did not become visible to myself all at once. Perhaps the pain of who I had become would have killed me where it so…..I could not look in the mirror at first, even to try to straighten myself out to look presentable. I was afraid of that lost, hunted person in the mirror. That person who was trying to kill the real me. The person who was burying me alive, coldly deaf to her/my screams of terror. You saw these things, you Children of The Lord, and you continued to reach out. To smile, to look in my eyes…To Remind Me Who I Am…..and slowly, oh so slowly, I began this journey to remembrance. Slowly, one meal, one bath, one meeting, one service, one word of hope, one action of love at a time you Children, you Saints, brought me to The Light. To Love. To God.
A child of The Light am I.
Sometimes I acted as if I did not hear you. Sometimes I believed I was not worthy and ran away, back deep into darkness. But always, even when I ran I hid, like a starving child, your love, deep in my heart and in the darkest of dark I would remember this love and yearn for more….so your love acted as light to guide me back to His Children. I learned to seek you as you sought me. I learned to seek God……I learned to see myself through first your eyes, then His eyes. Then I learned they were the same. His heart was in your heart and I began to BECOME. I began to heal, I began to change….I REMEMBERED WHO I AM…..A Child of God. Worthy. You taught me who I am. You showed me God’s Love so in a way that I could understand, then embrace then desire, then seek then live. You forgave me and that taught me God forgives me
A child of The Light am I.
Barbara Rhyne Tucker
