One minute life is calm.. the next all hell breaks loose...

OMG... This can't be happening...
How did I get here..
It was the darkest of nights..
The longest of nights..
The most frightening of nights..

Frightening is not really the word..
Terror... pure, blinding .. terror
I am frozen..
but I feel the sweat running down my spine..
I don't understand how I got here...

I am literally freezing..
I know I have toes.. but I can't feel them
They are numb... and the numbness is spreading..
but that is nothing compared with the constant fear
fear is the only constant..

I sit with my back in a corner
Legs pulled up tight
Watching
Waiting
Praying
Begging

The stench is over-powering
It seeps into every corner of the room...
and every ounce of me
I try to not gag
but it is rising

I hear the sounds of normal life outside
How long until life feels normal again
Will it ever feel normal again
Perhaps this is the new normal
Perhaps this is my future

OMG that thought is more terrifying than anything that has gone before..

My eye has started to swell
I keep touching it.. which is making it worse..
Dirty hands on a cut can only lead to trouble
After a couple of hours I know my eye is infected
Not only that, my face hurts where it hit the gate

I just want to go home...
I read the writings that women before me left on the walls..
Hour after hour I come back to the same one:
"Oh God please help me,
Why have you left me here?"

But it is not God who has put me here
It is my own stupidity
I thought I was bullet-proof
It was a surprise to learn I am not..
Was there not a gentler way to teach this lesson?

and again the fear

I know someone is watching me
A trickle of sweat down my spine again
Should I make eye-contact
Should I pretend I see nothing
And then it occurs to me that she is staring at my boots

And for the second time in as many hours
The thought crosses my mind that if anyone threatens me
I will stick the heel of the boot in their eye
I know.. shocking right?
But you cannot possibly judge unless you have spent hours trapped in my hell

I hold on to the light at the end of the tunnel..
It is faint.. and so very far away
And perhaps it is all in my mind..
But I hold on to that safety

I have to stop writing.. it is exhausting...