My name is Peter

My name is Peter

I need to talk.

Something happened a few years ago that I need to work through.
I've never spoken of it before
- or rather I've never stopped speaking of it but never of the way I feel.
I've always pushed it away really - rationalised it
- something I've tried to convince others about
but never looked at what it means to me, inside.
It would be too painful, I don't like people to get too close.

Anyway it's left me with a whole range of emotions and feelings I can't cope with.
So when I saw the advert for the group I thought I'd come.
Most of all I don't feel loved.
I don't expect to be.
Well I couldn't, not after what I've done.
Or perhaps it was what I failed to do.
I'm constantly on edge, irritable.

I can't see the point - there's not a lot to look forward to is there.

Everyone goes on as if nothing has happened,
though the whole world has changed - can't they see that.
Busy with their own little lives, their own petty quarrels.
But what does it matter after what happened.

I get these nightmares. People fighting. Shouting too.
In the dark its hard to see. There are torches,
but among the trees - the trees and people look the same.
I want to run, but the soldiers - they're everywhere.
I've been running ever since.

It's no better when I'm awake.
I keep seeing this person, just as if he were next to me.
You could reach out and touch him, if you dared.
But I saw him die. I saw him dead.
I caused his death.
Maybe that's why he won't leave me alone.

But it's not just him, it's everywhere.

The slightest sounds startle me - from the moment those damned cockerels start next door in the morning.
Walking down the street, the banging of the builders
- always hammering, nails into wood:
and I'm back there - the hammering,
nails into wood, into hands, into wood, into feet.
And the cock crows again.

What really irritates me is Paul's self-confidence,
self-assurance, but he wasn't there was he.
He didn't see, he didn't hear,
he didn't smell the hatred of the crowd.
And he dares to criticise us for hiding.
He'll never understand.

The truth is, it should have been me.
I should never have survived, and I wish to God I hadn't.

But at the time I was numb, in disbelief.
After three years it seemed as if we would go on forever. There were problems, there always are if you live that close to someone.
And we knew the authorities didn't like us
- we worked outside their structures and they had promised to get us for that.
But I didn't expect it to end so suddenly
and not somewhere we had been a thousand times before.

And now they are coming for me. Tomorrow probably.

I ran away, as per usual.
But then I met him, as per usual.
"Where are you going?" he said.
"I've a place waiting for you," he said.

After all I've done, the betrayals, the anger, the pain I've caused. He still comes after me.
He still wants me. He still loves me.

Death comes easy: It's the love that's hard to take.

©Peter G Ashby 2008
Easter 1996
First Published in the Clinical Theology Association Newsletter No 69 January 1997