In fact, since the accident, Mom doesn't love anyone. She is marble. Beautiful. Frigid. Easily stained by her family. What's left of us anyway. We are corpses. At first, we sought rebirth. But resurrection devoid of her love has made us zombies. We get up every morning, skip breakfast, hurry off to work or school. For in those other places, we are more at home. And sometimes we stagger beneath the weight of grief, the immensity of aloneness.

The truth is, I've always been afraid of letting anyone get too close. I built a wall around me, a barricade to hide behind those few times someone wanted entry to my heart.

You are a gift to all who know you, whether or not they realize it. If they don't, they are blind. You have a special place in this world. All you have to do is find it. Do not give up on yourself, or the truths you have realized. Do not give in to those who could crush your dreams like nutshells. And never turn away from forever love.

Red and raw like my brain, unable to shut down, thoughts crashing like electrons orbiting a nucleus of deuling emotions.

I do have friends, but they don't know me, only someone I've created to take my place. Someone sculpted from ice. I keep the melted me bottled up inside. Where no one can touch her, until, unbidden, she comes pouring out.

I want to open myself, let him inside. But how do I give what has already been taken?

Whatever has happened in someone's past, the future is theirs to shape. The first step is to find a way out.