Unbidden Memories

 1/16/2026

Unbidden Memories

Memories swirling around my mind

Memories of days long ago

Dark Memories of Violation

No matter how hard I try I can’t quiet them

Cannot purge them from my thoughts, from my body

This is Agony unending

Flashbacks of my brother and friends forcing me to play “Sailors and Prostitute”

Of my grandfather and his "Satanic cult” forcing me to watch them rape other girls and then taking turns with me

Of being forced to watch as he stabbed Mindy over and over again, her blood splashing on me like hot rainn

murdering her for yelling at them to stop hurting me

Then being told that I killed her because I cried out in pain

Made to help carry her lifeless, blood-slick body to the flooded copper mine

Watching him tie a big rock to her with baling

Twine and throwing her into the dark, murky water and watching her body sink

Memories of telling my brother “Mindy is in there” when we were exploring the woods around the mine

Where is my lifeline?

Where is my Lifeline?

            A growing restlessness within stirs me from a less than placid sleep.

            I wake feeling trapped, entangled in a dark blanket of shadows interwoven with terror and pain, weighed down with memories.

            I wade through the murky myre of uncertainty, fear, and confusion, trying to get to the surface so that I can breath… I feel as though I am drowning in a thick fog of pain, being dragged down into the thick soup of memories, and hurt.

            A torrent of memories beats away at my mind sending me spinning violently into the past….

           

            I grasp frantically at the roots and mud as someone drags me backwards toward the pain, hurt, through the terror….

            There is no one there to help me, no one that is willing to look at the pain… to reach out a hand to pull me from this pain…

            Those that say they love me refuse to put themselves through the hurt of looking at what has happened to me… how can they love me if they are unwilling to help me? How can they love me if they blame me for what others have done?

            Hurt courses through my veins as I try so hard to find one person that will help me try to ease the pain… I grasp at meaningless promises that crumble like dry straw in my hands… I sob with fear as I see what I thought would be a lifeline fall to shreds in my hands….

            I look all around me, in the immense blackness, hoping to see just one tiny spark of light but all that I see is blackness…

            I know that there is a light out there somewhere, but I cannot see it….

            I know there is a lifeline somewhere but it is not within the reach of my desperately grasping hands.

            Will anyone help brighten the glow of that light? Will anyone help me to know where to reach to get hold of the lifeline? How to find my way out?

All rights reserved, written by Amy Yampanis 

To be known

To be known

Sometimes I just want to be known,

Need desperately for someone to understand

Who I am and what I have been through.

To feel like I am real to at least one person-

It seems like no one can understand the depth of pain-

The torment of my past.

Am I really real if no one knows me?

Do I even exist if only I see me?

Is it wrong to want others to understand?

I need so desperately to know that I am not

Alone in this- that someone else can see

That this pain is real.

That someone else can see how brave I must be

In order to face each day

Rather than hiding away.

by Amy Yampanis, All Rights Reserved

 

Sing of the Days of Innocence

Sing of the Days of Innocence

            Sing of the days of innocence, how they once were,  

                        -I loved all the people in my life, with an unconditional love, with all

  of my heart.

-I trusted them, with a trust that only a child could have.

-I believed in them, that they would be able to give me what I needed.

-I looked to them to mirror back to me who I was.

-I went to them when I was hurting inside…

            Sing of the days of innocence, bitter though they were,

                        -My innocent love ebbed away in response to HIS sick touches.

-My young trust was abused as they manipulated me to give them what they wanted despite the horrible effects it had on me.

-My hopeful belief in them was stripped bare as countless times they only satiated their own desires, leaving me with nothing.

-My natural desire to look to them turned to a desire to run from them as they mirrored back to me only hatred, evil, guilt, and pain.

-My need to be comforted by those I loved, twisted by HIM into me having to comfort him in his sick and perverse ways.

            Sing of the days of innocence, gone though they are,

-They were taken from me so long ago by the wandering fingers of greedy men.

-My childhood was taken away from me by their loveless actions of “sexual” violence.

-Those days were robbed from me by the skillful lies, petty deceit of so many of the people that I loved.

-He forced the premature end of my days of innocence as pain after pain piled up to build a wall that was for so long impenetrable.

-Those days were ripped from me and replaced by them with the shackles of guilt and blame that they so craftily laid upon me.

            Sing of the days of innocence and how they should have been-

            Sing of the days of innocence and how they truly were-

            Sing of the days of innocence to end the pain they carry-

Sing of the days of innocence, that you might be set free from the bondage of the past.

by Mindy Hawk, All Rights Reserved