My head is fuzzy like the feeling I get the morning after the night before, a night of heavy drinking

My head is fuzzy like the feeling I get the morning after the night before, a night of heavy drinking. I lie still for a while before I open my eyes, listening, listening for clues, for sounds that will tell me where I am. I was hoping to feel the softness of my bed at home, the warmth of Hannah's sleeping body beside me, the sighing of her sweet breath, the weight of a comforter. But instead I can feel a coldness surrounding me and the mattress is hard and unyielding, the blanket, rough. There is a familiar smell in the air as I take a deep breath, a smell I had long ago forgotten and hoped I would never smell again. The smell of too many men living too close together, the smell of metal and sweat and acid and stale institution food. The smell of men in despair, men in pain, men with lost hope. The smell of evil deeds, revenge, drugs, bartering, cruelty and desperation. The smell of my vomit, my criminal past.

I know where I am now.

2700 South California Avenue. Hell.

I lie still because I don't want to be noticed. I don't want them to come for me again. The soreness of my throat reminds me that even the men who are in charge hate me enough to try to choke me into submission, to tame me. Without looking I know I have burns from the handcuffs, from where they dragged me across the floor by my hands and called me names. I can't go to them for help from the drug addicts, the HIV positives, the pimps, the murderers, the psychopaths who are all out there waiting. They smirk and call me "Pretty boy," and stroke me. I hide in the library, hide in the garden praying they won't find me and damage me. I thought I was tough till I came here. Here they try to force drugs on you, if you refuse they beat you. I can feel the bruises, the aching joints even now as I lie still in this bed. Lying still and trying to keep safe. My muscles ache from the effort and tears begin to prick at my eyes.

I try to block out the image of a young man hanging from his trousers staring at me, a look of surprise on his face. Two suicides since I came here and I wonder if I will be next. Sometimes I think taking my life would be the easy way out. Getting away before one of them finally catches me and succeeds in taking me, raping me.

I am worthless and abandoned.

Is this a waking dream?

.

Did they catch me again? What have I forgotten?

I can hear footsteps along the polished vinyl floor. I hear screams from the insane. I try to plug my ears, stop the sound from penetrating my consciousness, hunch further under the blanket. There's nowhere to hide from the despair of others in here. No privacy, no safety. Someone is coming to get me and I have no defense.

Please God, let this be a dream.