In The Night

I would hear his footsteps approaching me in the night. Lying there, I'd pretend that I was asleep, stomach clenched, muscles taut with anxiety-- an innocent fawn caught in the inappropriate headlight-gaze of his eyes. I kept my eyes closed hoping to make my uncle disappear, but he pressed himself against the boundaries of my skin. I learned to leave my body.

Over fifty years later, I still sometimes wake in the night. Are those sounds my stepson creeping around downstairs? Or is it a burglar stealing my laptop, along with all of my writings and my purse with my identity in it?

Then I consider how I was duped by Facebook. I just found out that what I post there belongs to Facebook forever- even if I quit Facebook and delete my page. They can use is as they will. My pictures. My essays. My poems. Anger at unseen faces, those people who make policies hidden in a dark wall of legalese. But we all just click “Agree”, still in the dark, so that we can play with all the others on-line.

Tired of thoughts spinning through my head and fear and anger roiling in my gut, I get up and go downstairs to survey the damage wrought by the burglar—or not. I turn on the light. Everything is safely in its place. I sit down and pick up my pen to write this in my journal.
--by Terra Rafael