It’s been a while; it’s been a long while. I miss you. Why don’t you come and see me anymore?

The night was our time – nobody could touch us. We were invincible. Sure, I struggled and hated you – though I didn’t really hate you, it just seemed that way. Okay, yeah, I tried my hardest to make you stop, to make you disappear. You were driving me crazy, though.

I wasn’t sleeping, but you already knew that. I was wrapped up in trying to save myself from you. In the hours between dusk and dawn, I was writhing in your sadistic pleasure, begging you to stop with each lethargic whimper. You never listened.

You had made a vow to me, even though I was unaware of it. You promised to be the only thing I could rely on, the single stable thing in my life. And, by God, you kept that promise. Every night, for what seems like an immeasurable amount of time, you came to me.

You came to me at night, assuming that’s when you’d have the strongest impact, and you were right. I never forgot you.

You were on my mind constantly: when I woke up with tears on my cheeks and screams echoing through my dark bedroom; when I was in class, trying not to fall asleep for fear of you visiting me there, too; and when I was just laying in his arms, my head on his shoulder, listening to him drift off contentedly. You were always there, in the back of my mind, just waiting to show your beautifully hideous face whenever I needed a reality check.

I tried to get help – specialists, counselors, my parents – but you said they wouldn’t understand. You were, of course, right again. I became a liar, a kid looking for attention. You were always so freaking right.

I tried for so long. I talked to so many shrinks that their voices melted together after a while, sounding like the adults in Charlie Brown. Everyone else followed suit after a while – you were the only clear voice.

As I got older, I came to respect you more; I became more curious about you. I stopped resisting so much, stopped asking, “Why me?” I wanted to know why you tortured me, why you hated me so much, why you worked the way you did. I wanted to know you, understand you, be you. You never let me, though. Our nights weren’t about you and you weren’t going to allow me to flip it around – our nights were solely about me.

Our nights became my everything. I lived for them, lusted for them. I became so obsessed – obsessed with my attacker, the one thing I was able to rely on. You made sure of that, at least.

Everything was spinning out of control. I felt like I was just floating, wandering through life with no hold on the ground. Then darkness would fall and you, my savior, would come to me. As you put my mind through Hell, bending and breaking me as you saw fit, I sang your praises. You became my lost religion.

I needed you. You were my sense of self, my reality, my stability. You were my world. You made me need you; you made me depend on you. You enjoyed my weakness, but not nearly as much as you enjoyed watching me fall, hard and fast, back to the ground.

You left me; you took away our nights of relentless torture. You took away my stability. You took away my reality and forced me into theirs. I wasn’t ready. I tried to find you, to tell you, but you refused me, ignoring my pleas. I still need you.

So, Savior, I beg of you, come back to me. Give me your voice, torture my mind, take away my insanity. Give me back my nightmare.