You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She's haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.

The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don't offer up anything. Don't explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don't accidentally put your head in a noose.

Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play...Ghosts dare not enter here.

I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.

Some adults would rather pretend that bad things dont exist than to talk about them.

My face becomes a Picasso sketch, my body slicing into pieces.

I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?