One year ago I posted this on Facebook. It’s raw, unedited for language, but it came straight from my heart and the Good Lord understands. He knows how we suffer. He knows how we will react. My apologies to Him for my lack of faith.

Here’s the post:

I’m up late because I can’t sleep. Again… I have no one to talk to, so I’m just gonna ramble if that’s ok with you.

I’m always haunted. Night time is when all the worst things happened when I was growing up. They would come to my room after the other kids were asleep. Sometimes at one in the morning if a brother or sister was sick. But after they were tucked in with Vick’s in the vaporizer and the NyQuil was kicking in, they would come. They replaced my doorknob with one that had no lock. And it didn’t matter if I was asleep or awake, dreading what was about to happen, feigning sleep. It didn’t matter if I felt or claimed to feel sick…it was gonna happen. Mom would take a bath first…I heard the tub filling, and I knew.

You think it’s fucked up, me writing like this. I don’t blame you. So read no further. I’ll never know, and if I did, I’d merely say you have to take care of and protect yourself.

Since I was very young… Iike 6, probably younger, the dark has terrified me. I don’t want to sleep. I fight it. All day long I dread it. But I can sleep better during the day, have fewer memorable nightmares, and if I get enough sleep, I’ll feel pretty good.
But I’m not the only one haunted in the dark. And I’m not the only traumatized person who’s lived to almost 60 while being dysfunctional, mentally ill and broken. There are millions like me, many in far worse shape. I beg you, if you’ve read this far, to think of them. If you pray, pray not for me, but them. If you have the strength to send positive vibes, don’t waste them on me. Use them for the ones who can still do something with their lives…. And of course, cry for them.

Having gotten that out of the way, let me get to the reason I’m up right now.
Don’t ask me this fucker’s name, but you’ll know who I mean. It’s that monster who broke up his marriage, his wife threatened to take his kids away and so, naturally, he killed her. Then he strangled his younger daughter in front of the four-year-old, who asked him, “Is that what’s going to happen to me?”

Those words have burned a hole in my heart. I’m hurting and I’m sick in my soul. I can a almost hear her. Soft, innocent voice full of shock and fear. How can anyone harm such a wonderful creation, such an innocent soul, who asked that question because she did not know how else to plead for her Iife and couldn’t understand what was happening or why?

But we ask, and there are never any answers. Never. Criminal profilers and psych graduates know nothing. The offenders get interviewed and say nothing even though they use words. Then there’s doctor-patient confidentiality, often abused because in a capital case the doctors have to testify often, but are stuck by the legal rights of the accused. If something the accused said to the shrink isn’t case related, it’s inadmissible. You know how many hard core animals walk free or get leniency because a dead child matters less to the judicial system than the rights of their murderers?

About ten years ago, a 16-year-old in my town was raped. The rapist was given what amounts to walking papers. Go ahead, look around. Check state case histories. Don’t settle for Google links to blogs or some statistics aggregate bullshit. Look deeper.

Those little girls. They haunt me tonight. They probably always will.
Michael Jackson probably was the beast people claimed he was a long time ago. And the rapper who went nuts during an interview with Gayle King? That ain’t no innocent man. If he was, he’d never have acted that way. The innocent do not behave thus.
And in all of this, I am forced to wonder: where was God while those girls were being murdered? Why did he look the other way? I don’t get it. I’ve seen miracles with my own eyes. Why couldn’t they have one?

Why are there thousands of Hispanic children at large in our country, and how did that happen without the American people rioting in every city in our country? And why are they being trafficked right in front of us? Why have some of them reported being sexually assaulted, and nobody’s investigating (claims of every case being investigated is bullshit), and why aren’t victims getting help?

And why is Betsy Devos involved? Why are these children being called “orphans”, and why are some being fed into facilities she’s associated with?
These kids ain’t like I was. They’ve had everything taken from them, every shred of innocence, privacy, dignity. They will never fear the night as I do.
No.
They will fear day and night both. They’ll fear everyone they meet.
And they’ll haunt me as the little girls who are dead haunt me. As the boy I used to be haunts me.

Betsy Devos claims the title of “Christian”. She’s nothing of the sort. Wealthy people violate the most basic criteria. Jesus said “A man cannot serve two masters: God and money.”

Google the net worth of televangelists, and you’ll get your eyes opened really fast. We’re talking millionaires, and every one of them as materialistic as the most jaded rapper, actor or rich politicians and doctors. They don’t just have a Porsche and Mercedes Benz, and matching second cars like Ferraris.

Televangelists, a few years back, went through some weird phase when they couldn’t live without their own private jets. One motherfucker said, from his pulpit, that he paid cash for one. Then he bought another one. With cash. He told his church members to their faces they’d been bilked and played. They cheered the bloody bastard.

Joel Osteen seems cheerful; always smiling and positive. But this piece of shit lives in a ten bedroom mansion with just his wife and kids. Does he offer shelter to the homeless? Fuck no, you kidding me? During a hurricane he lied and said his church was flooded. Refugees not welcome here in God’s house. When cameras recorded the lie, Osteen changed his lie to cover his first falsehood (some believe he had a member overrun the mop sink to add effect).

A female televangelist once ordered granite or marble tops for her toilet tanks. When the story got out, she turned positively outraged. They all live by the credo, “I earned every goddamn penny. It’s nobody’s business how I spend it.”

These people and more back Trump and even his actions with immigrants and especially their children. There is no greater dishonor, no graver sin, no crime as horrific, as harming children.

When Allied troops finally entered the slave and death camps of the Nazis near the end of World War Two, the world was sickened by the newspaper articles alone, never mind the filmed footage. By then, not many children were left in the camps. Most were murdered, lying in pits covered in lime and earth.

We used to have a double standard about children. Labor, forced and deadly, was fine. Then we passed child labor laws. Now, today, we don’t seem to give a damn.

We’re numb. Dead inside. We cluck in mock sympathy and fuck with words. They mean nothing.

Say what you want about politics. Climate change. Whatever. But unless and until we get back to caring for and protecting all children, we’re doomed.

And tonight, I’m haunted. I will fight sleep. Because I can’t face the nightmares sure to take me.