BOOK ONE—END FIRST KISS PART 13 BACK IN THE SIXTH GRADE CLOAK ROOM ...

If you have recently begun to follow my blog, may I respectfully suggest that you scroll back through my posts until the inception of this story, titled FIRST KISS Part 1 appears on your screen, so that while reading forward, you can clearly understand the negatively focused domino effect that evolved in the aftermath of the disastrous, impassioned first kiss that an inexperienced twelve year old boy had planted roughly upon the terrified lips of a young girl, leaving both psyches to crash land upon an unexplored planet where a pair of dizzied think tanks had no conscious clue of what had just happened between them that had transformed their friendship into something that had felt so utterly foreign to both as to have stimulated their defense systems to sense a near and present danger arising as if a barrier had divided a very shocked pair of kids into separate camps after the girl child's fists felt compelled to beat ‘her attacker’ all around his head, because, during that mind blowing moment when a man-child had grabbed her vulnerable body against the strength of his own, the intelligent brain of this budding young woman had not yet gained so much as a hint of aclue as to the fact that behind her thought processor’s many layered wall of denial, her psyche had had need to develop and employ the defense mechanism of self protective amnesia, which consistently shielded the conscious portion of her mind from recalling so much as an inkling of awareness of having been roughly manhandled by a pedophile who, having won her trust, had sexually abused her body, repeatedly, and so, during the immediate aftermath of Annie and Joseph’s first kiss, two kids are seen standing apart, both feeling completely in the dark concerning the real reason as to why their first preteen impassioned entanglement with the opposite sex had subconsciously fired up a self protective reaction from deep within Annie’s traumatized psyche, which, in turn, conspired to ignite Joseph’s combustible subconscious reaction to burst into flames of humiliation, leaving this pair of innocents with no conscious awareness of early child experiences, which Mother Nature had thought best to repress, suggesting why a heightened sense of emotional reactiveness on the parts of a very sweet girl and a really nice guy (no parachutes in sight) spiked sky high before crashing back down through their own walls of denial, after both had released latent bolts of anxiety, which had struck each other to the quick as if lightening, flashing back and forth between them, had served to erect a negatively focused force field so electrically self empowered as to have transformed that which could have been the tenderness of young love’s first kiss in the Garden of Eden into an out of control, combustible disaster so deeply searing to both psyches as to eventually scar both hearts in such personally devastating ways that sound reasons for both children to mask the depths of their sadness, each in his/her own way, shall soon appear on our screens.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, sooo—here stands Annie, the morning after her first kiss, quietly attempting to regain her balance on this foreign planet, right next to Joseph, whose mind, feeling as deeply confused as is true of mine, is most likely engaged in trying to pull off the same oxygen-deprived, emotional balancing 'act' as am I while, we busy ourselves with stuffing mittens into pockets, shmushing hats and scarves into our sleeves before hanging our parkas on hooks, which happen to be side by side—and though I’m feeling prickly all over, because, last night in the alley, I'd done such a stupid (mind blowing) thing—my nerves are mollified by the intuitive (not to be confused with conscious) thought that—Joseph is my best friend, and I'm still Annie, his best friend, so as soon as I smile naturally and thus warmly welcome his presence with a shy hi, his ire will melt down, releasing his heartfelt smile to welcome back my friendship, and all will be well—just like when tempers flare into tempests and then cool down, time and again, in my family, because—love conquers all—right?

Need I say that this unconscious assumption is based in my personal experience as well as in my negligible understanding of both sides of human nature, leaving me utterly flabbergasted when the warmth of my friendly greeting receives—no—good natured reply.  In fact, while silently staring me down from his tightly tensed full height, I see the natural sparkle that Joseph's blue eyes had always offered so naturally to me die a cold death as if he can't fathom any reason as to why I'd assume that any portion of his heart might find any reason whatsoever to soften enough to crack even a smidgen of a smile back at mine, and then, right before my best friend spins on his heels, literally turning his back on the trembling smile that has just fallen flat on my face, let's pay close attention so as to see what’s in store for this pair of star crossed children, next, based in the fact that as each unexpected turn of events continues to play itself out, my fearful attitude will smell smoke, as in:  Where there's smoke there's bound to be fire, because for a fraction of a second, before Joseph’s eyes aim and let fly a furious quiver of fiery arrows straight into mine, an instinctive reaction on my part jogs the momentary flash of a subconscious memory to shoot out from behind the opaque nature of my wall of denial as a darkly cloudy vision of two small fists flailing around, failing to fight off a bear hug that had overwhelmed my sense of personal safety immediately preceding the moment when the sloppy kiss of a dark haired assailant (whose menacing presence will appear in repetitive nightmares throughout each stage of my life) rose up between Joseph and me as if the same huge, hulking, darkly furred, red eyed gorilla, which had lunged, repeatedly, at my sleeping form in my bed, had, for a split second, been empowered to reawaken the raw sense of subconscious terror that would chase my psyche into dreamscapes where my sleeping self would 'dash' out of my bedroom, through the hall, past the closed door to my parents' bedroom and over the threshold of our apartment's front door, down three flights of steps and out into a starless, scary night, no moon in sight, while I, fast asleep, felt my mouth open wide to scream for help but nothing but silence was heard, because the self assertive portion of my voice, which had failed to develop after Janice's death, remained deeply traumatized ever since my natural path of emotional development had sharply detoured toward becoming a pleaser extraordinaire whenever any authority figure felt reason to lash my self worth with a whip of words so powerful as to hypnotize the subservient portion of my brain to do exactly as I was told, no questions asked, no back talk, at all, so as to push my unconscious fear of emotional abandonment as far back under layers of subconscious repression behind my defense system's wall of denial—and though everything written above flashed out of and back into my subconscious too quickly for the conscious portion of my twelve year old mind to identify the true source of my fear, I could not deny the burning reality of sparks that conjoined my fear to collide head-on with Joseph's fury igniting a maelstrom of violent zinging sensations, back and forth, between he and me, which having electrified the air between us, again, saw Joseph's brow lowering and his eyes narrowing as if taking aim, so that I, feeling utterly unnerved, stiffen up, readying my heart to be targeted as a bull’s eye so clearly was his heart gearing up to shoot mine through and through with the next batch of sharply pointed, deeply painful arrows, poisoned by a young ego, which had felt as painfully shot down by my fists as would any vulnerable boy, who, perhaps, had been subjected to brow beatings by an adult who, though loving him, had, after bruising his self worth, offered nothing more than the silent treatment, unlike my family, whose hearts had naturally reunited once egocentric darts, poisoned with fury, were left to melt down quietly as if we'd all absorbed this unconscious attitude—AND THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS ...

As instinct 'knows' which of two warring bodies has silently won the high road, the taut body of this tall, blond boy, looms over me so menacingly that I flinch to see his cheeks tensing as though teeth are clenching behind lips, pursed as though ready to snarl, and sensing my self confidence shriveling up into nothing, I'm subconsciously swept back in time by the certainty that, before my very eyes, my best friend, Joseph is about to dump worthless me into the trash upon morphing into that bully, who had tortured my self image, repeatedly, each time I'd climbed into THAT VAN FROM HELL WHERE MY SELF CONFIDENCE WITH BOYS HAD FELT EVERY BIT AS DEVOURED AS WAS PIGGY IN LORD OF THE FLIES ...

The fact that at twelve, I'd not remembered such a quivering mass of molten male fury bumping up against my being so swiftly as to have scalded my nose with confusion so searing as to render my brain incapable of sniffing out when it was in my best interests to arouse my instincts to raise a shield around my heart against the fact that my friendship with Joseph is suddenly struggling between life and death.

So scared am I of whatever this Tom cat is bound to spew out, next, that my nerves are all a quiver and my heart pounds away as fast as a hummingbird's wings until Joseph offers me something that I'd never been given by anyone, in my entire life.

With a sudden upswing of his arm, Joseph's hand tightens into a fist and before my terrified eyes, my heart is slugged for the very first time with:

"The Finger"

After which, my former best friend spins on his heel, leaving me breathless, slumped against the wall ...

Uh—in case you're thinking 'no biggie'—at least he didn't punch you, how often do you consciously remind yourself that Mother Nature hard wired our brains to leap to spontaneous judgments without asking questions of ourselves, first?

Questions like why did I beat my best friend all about his head?  Why did my cloakroom encounter with Joseph leave me slumped against the wall, heart pounding with subconscious fear of deeming myself worth—nothing?

If it wasn't 'the finger' that made me feel as though a boulder, meant to shatter my heart had lodged inside my throat, cutting off my oxygen supply, then which long repressed, traumatized feeling had actually arisen from within the depths of subconscious storage that had felt every bit as terrifying as whatever had compelled my defense system to beat off Joseph's kiss, last night?

When any portion of
A current situation
Feels similar to
A terrifying childhood experience
(Buried alive in a deeply repressed
State of being behind your defense
System's wall of denial [or mine])
A traumatized reaction releases
Latent anxiety to spike so
Spontaneously as to arouse
Your startle reflex (or mine) to
Alert the brain's basic survival instincts
To knock out every thought other
Than fight, flee, or freeze in hopes of
Saving your life from
A near and present (?) danger closing in

Survival instincts are
Like burglar alarms
Blaring silently inside our heads
And while alarms of danger are
Clanging away
Loved ones, who mean us no
Harm what-so-ever
Can seem to transform into
Stranger Danger in a flash ...
On both sides ...

And as that's the honest truth—
What must have Annie seen in
Joseph's eyes just before
‘The finger’ flashed out to shoot
Her heart dead, after which
Her best friend in the whole wide world
Spun furiously on his heel 'abandoning'
A twelve year old girl to pull herself
Together after her dizzied brain had
Unconsciously spiraled back across
The time line of her life, where
Her self worth was seen crash landing
Inside that van, where Annie had been
Subjected to shrinking into a roasted
Version of a pig turning round and
Round on a spit, basted, repeatedly
By the laughter of a mean-minded
Gang of bullying guys, who having
Surrounded her, had repeatedly
Turned up the flames of
Deeply penetrating humiliation, which
Had haunted her nightmares of being
Stalked by that gorilla, which had
Taken pleasure licking away at
The raw, oozing wounds of her pride
(leaving my adult intuition to ask—
What woman had that gorilla hated
So much as to stalk and
Crush the self image of innocent
Little girls, like me, whose eczema
Literally bled profusely down my arms
Night after night, when I'd awaken
Crying aloud in a tortured state of
Anguish that had offered
No conscious clue as to what
Dark secret had lurked so deeply within
My psyche as to have made me itch so
Profoundly to get out from under my skin ...