She is a light sleeper, so when the nightmares hit, I usually try to keep quiet; to stay in control. I crave control. I need control... I whimper in my sleep and she turns towards me. My body tightens, knowing her eyes have opened and she has been made aware of the situation at hand. I try not to lose control altogether but my body shakes and my breathing becomes heavy with a fear that shouldn’t exist. I am pulled into the safety of her arms.

It’s the same two nightmares every night. In the first one, a middle aged man with a small goatee and coarse hands opens the door to my room and comes to sit on the edge of my bed. A child then, I always sat up eagerly- I really never saw it coming. He spoke to me in a deep, rugged voice. “Cam, you’re beautiful. Now do me a favor and lay back down... Daddy has some work to do.” I heard myself; my child self; scream as he touched my body. I tried to ask Momma about him one day. She took me to the doctors and told me I was ill. She cried and told the doctors that her child was going insane. I didn’t know what to say then-I was still too small to understand... So I didn’t say anything at all.

The second dream is always shorter. I wake up surrounded by a dark pool of blood. In this nightmare though, I am smiling. There is a fresh corpse on the floor, the blood still running out of the body. I don’t know who has killed this man, or who he is, but I am happy. I awaken from this nightmare shaken and afraid. I have never been one for horror movies-and the idea of seeing a dead body makes me sick to my stomach.

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Tonight, I don’t want to sleep. I don’t feel her by my side warding of the demons that invade my head daily. I seek control but find none. I am tired of being hurt by this nightmare; tired of letting something have the ability to hurt me. I find my lighter and make a flame dance across my tan skin. I find some control in causing this pain... I am stronger than this. I carry the control. My eyes become heavy, and with the new found control I find the courage to fall asleep. I promise myself I will not have the nightmares tonight.

…..................................................................................................................................

The man with the small goatee and course hands is sitting on the edge of my bed. “Cam, you’re so beautiful. Now lay back down... Daddy has some work to do.” But this time I have control, and I am older. I fight back, suddenly thankful for the muscle on my body. The knife sitting on the edge of my nightstand awaits for my hand to grasp it. I don’t recall it being there, but I’m glad it is. I break his skin in several different places-the last where his heart should be. I watch him cry out in pain as I did all those nights.
The nights I shook and tried to find myself.
The nights I couldn’t pull myself to safety and grabbed only air, because my body became his and this wasn’t a nightmare.
One, two, three, four, five, six....
I continued pushing the metal deeper into his skin as my sheets turned red and his mouth pooled with blood.
Seven, eight, nine, ten....
And when I had my fill, I pushed his limp body off the bed and dropped the knife onto my nightstand.

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I am the light sleeper... I wake myself up whimpering and shaking. When I’m in a nightmare I am two different people: Myself, and a killer. Usually, the killer in me hides away in the crook of my arm until the nightmare has ended completely. I burn my arm to seek control, and the killer finds it when my arms can not stay down. After dropping the knife, I walk over to my mirror to wipe the blood off my body.

When I’m in a nightmare, I see myself as two different people.... Tonight, as I look into the mirror, I only see one.