Living in the refuge of the possessed

In the refuge of the possessed the air is the air of the workhouse, it is cold and untroubled by special excitements or events, the dull days and weeks freewheel through the calendar without colour or company just a demand for a few basic things in life. The refuge of the possessed is full of misfits and leftovers from abuse, all with the strong belief in their own unimportance, they are there to be taken advantage of whatever there emotional temperature or atmosphere and when things go wrong they are their to be put up with or mistrusted . Have a go arrogant visits for conversations about freedom to the refuge by people working to a clock are to be discouraged as the consequences for almost every resident are unpleasant , frightened references to personal memories of a bad life masquerading as mature agreements are worthless and dangerous, distress is full bodied when looking through the eyes of a crying child, complications set in when sImply standing by you're experiences then becomes an excuse for judgement !.

                                                                                            To be judged when you have committed no crime other than to be born and then to be unjustly assaulted without escape or retreat by the people who you are supposed to trust confirms your booking in later life to live with powerful  ghosts in your now tainted mind, powerful ghosts that cannot be altered despite professional services or the self improving minorities representing a great number of altered souls, to be judged which of course we all disapprove of sharpens the vagueness with which the altered soul sees himself, you see me, you see the things you dislike, you smell the stench of the weak and you delight in telling me so, all of this then moulds and defines who I really am as there is no mum or dad around with the vision or energy to argue my case.!.

To be very young and picked up suddenly and plunged into a world of pain and fear from which I will ultimately never recover despite any half decent half ass hired attempts I will never never understand, and as I talk to the other residents in this damned neighbourhood it would appear that neither do they, sex and violence experienced through drunken days and even drunker hostile nights that never seemed to end splits a child into two, learning and living are pushed to the back of the queue, an inbuilt desperation  to  somehow survive must replace the adolescent dreams of fun fairs and fish and chips, clean clothes and love, survive the days and especially those hostile nights on my own is now the top priority......ignore the rest!.

For a little boy to wake up into a different indisciplined world than when he went to sleep is surely bad enough, but to wake up into a menacing new world without the love and protection of your parents is even worse, but then for a chorus you slowly realise and discover throughout the following days that the selfish grown ups have now turned against you!, your mother is now a terrible curse  and that now the structure of your freewheeling days and nights are to based around your suffering and ritual humiliation is a brutal frightening realisation for anyone so young, mummy and daddy no longer exist !, christmas and birthdays are cancelled and holidays only exist in colourful brochures and will never be planned, hell  on earth arrived one night , it absorbed my young soul and took up residence in my DNA and there it torments me to this day.

Savage howling fear is an experience we have all shared in our slumland refuge, anonymous we maybe but along with a sense of guilt it somehow binds us together, a sense of dreadful guilt that we truly don't understand at a sensible level but we fully understand at a hiding in a corner in a dark hole counting mental and physical scars level is fine. Hell on earth woke me up one night to ' claim my soul', it was a disciplined submission in one so young, there was no resistance as I didn't realise just how much danger I was now in, why should I ?, when I went to sleep there was simply no evidence of its existence, I was a little boy immersing himself into the fascination of colourful cartoons, the difficulties of something called education and something even stranger called god, not forgetting on a saturday night the theme song of Dr Who, and if it was Dr  Who and the Daleks then book me a spot behind the couch until everybody that had to be exterminated had been and Dr Who and his theme song had taken himself and his horrible daleks off to another universe somewhere away from the back of my couch. This was a kind of life in a real world, a three dimensional  world that was all mine to see and explore and learn about on a daily basis but at my pace, a life with a meaning and a future, a life that surely simply belonged to me !.



Is to believe in nothing a self-indulgence?, is it a cowards way out?, your beliefs are my beliefs however tempting it may seem to cast an eye towards the nature, the power and the virtue of freedom, real horror evolves and becomes complex, although when hell on earth tapped me on the shoulder to claim his prize that black night I didn't immediately recognise his grin, I didn't understand what violence was, I was still more concerned with just exactly what were the intentions of the bogey man hiding under my bed maybe, but now this , this was something different , just what was it that had erupted downstairs in my house. So hell on earth sat on my bed in his new found territory that black night and tapped me his new customer on the forehead to enthusiastically wake  me up, "wake up little fool, wake up right now and bleed me some fear in this my stinking new home, I have such an appetite tonight".



Any strength at any time of the day alcohol in the refuge like the refuge itself is yet another neccesary escape to try and head off just another empty "hope it will rain day", and regardless of strength its there for all ages, alcohol will show its loyalty to all ages in all environments of course but in this institution alcohol is not the devil, alcohol is not the cheerleader of the damned, oh no, alcohol is an angel, alcohol is the only religion in here represented by an angel that isnt scared to flirt passionately with death at a variety of all levels. On each date maybe this relationship that isn't troubled by morality, dignity or self respect has to go a little bit further, a little bit further and a little bit more intimate, intimate until the angel of death finally pulls out a knife from the dirt and looking you straight in the eye presses the tip to your heart just hard enough to draw a tired blood. There's no panic or pain, that's allready been done to death, there is only a deep sigh of regret as the black angel of death embraces and presses you firm whilst whispering into your ear,  " you know the rules lover,  It's your time ".



Maybe if I simply hadn't of opened my very young eyes to my new life that night when I was ordered to do so , if i hadnt then maybe my life wouldn't have been so pathetic or unhappy, a delusion I know but surely a worthy one, I know i expect more from a self indulgent delusion than a self indulgent delusion can give it is true but imagination can give liberty can't it?.  If only I hadn't of opened my eyes, if only I had  kept them tight shut to the sprawling savagery now polluting the atmosphere in my little dark bedroom, as well as putting my hands tightly over my ears, yes I see now what a little fool I was, if I had of done that then maybe it would of all just gone away.....



In the refuge of the possessed there is no danger of religion, if you don't have liberty how can you believe in anything, how can you believe in an absurd book of myths , written with great competence Ime sure but spurious myths for all that. Religion in here is a dangerous fantasy,  religion immerses itself in the details of your pain by disguising itself as an invitation to freedom or a fuller life, the fear you feel, the mental panic, the physical pain, life with no meaning can all be helped because there must be a god