First light..

She wakes again, from a night of tormented sleep... Blood red sheets and doona wrapped around her skinny limbs like thick ropes. Not again she thinks... She lunges up and draws in her first breath of the day, stale cold air fills her lungs as she brings her fist hard down on the whooping alarm clock and throws herself back down on the mattress. She repeats the process twice more before accepting the inevitable. She opens her mouth and groans out loud at the thought of another day... Slowly she untangles herself from the mess in her bed and wonders inwardly what her dreams of the night before that she remembers like real memories mean? She consulates her dream dictionary to find that unfortunately, she isnt crazy as she so slightly hoped, but rather that a time for new beginnings is upon her and she is ready for whats to come.. She laughs at the books meaning as she throws it back to its home on her carpeted floor - what can be possibly be new about this day, when it is like every other - cold, lonely and full of lies.

She rises slowly from the mattress on the floor, hunched over as if she is fighting herself to stand, and slips on her black and gold thai dressing gown - thankful that she slept naked as images of being strangled by red betty-boop pajamas engulf her imagination. Thrusting open her bedroom door she walks quickly to the bathroom to being the morning rituals as the slate is freezing her bony feet. She leaves the bathroom, feeling false warmth from the water that just just enveloped around her - for a moment, she was held again...

Standing infront of her enormous wardrobe she contemplates her choice of clothes for the day... She wonders what she can wear that will tell the outside world she is ok today - for her choice of clothes has always reflected her inner feelings.. All she wants to wear is black, but knows that questions and grim-reaper jokes will abound in the workplace, so instead chooses her denim jeans that are tight, but not provocative, and a bright pink polo tshirt as a silent f**k you to the north shore snobs that surround her home... She may in affect dress like them today, but the colour she chooses is not a boring placid one - much like their personalities. She finishes the outfit with a pair of bright white 'sailboat' shoes, a small pink ring that she wears on the fourth finger of her right hand, and a small pair of blue and gold studs in her ears. She moves grudgingly to the small mirror leaning against her white window frame and ties her hair up in a small pony tail so it is out of her face for the day to come... She looks at herself in the mirror blankly, like she does everyday of late, inhales slowly and closes her eyes... she is transported back to the days when she was not alone standing infront of the mirror.

To a time, so long ago now, when she awoke - wrapped in another, rather then a blanket after another night of nightmares. When she smashed down the snooze button on the alarm not for thirty more minutes of sleep, but for thirty more minutes of bliss. When the warmth she felt wasnt from the shower, but that of anothers, who enveloped her until the last possible second, fighting the coming day. When she choose what to wear for the day to show off to the world what was his. When she had him to share her morning ritual with, and who filled her coming day with light, love and laughter.

She opens her eyes and for the first time in months - and smiles at herself. She blows herself a kiss, and turns and walks away... Baby steps she repeats to herself as she picks up her black handbag with the yellow scarf, and walks out her bedroom door... maybe this is the start of new beginnings...?

xx