I always knew something was wrong with me.
A few times, the thought came in —
it might be good to see a professional.
But that cost money.
I did not.

Then in 2021, I saw Bluesky Hypnosis.
I went to him.
He was good.
He made me cry.
It is very hard to make me cry.

I always knew if I cry, I could heal faster,
especially crying in front of professionals.
I did get a few sessions with a therapist
in the early nineteen nineties,
but I was not able to cry.

With Bluesky Hypnosis,
almost every session, he got me to cry.
It was not crying.
It was more like howling.

One particular session,
he told me to tear down the walls.
I was aware of the walls.
I built them.
Any sign of rejection or pain,
the walls went up.
They were tall, very tall
and impenetrable.
They protected me,
isolated me from pain.

I agreed.
Even as I said yes,
I felt something arising in me.
Something feral.
It screamed,
“No, do not tear down the walls.
I need the walls. They protect me.”
I started hyperventilating.
Peter McLaughlin got very alarmed.
Breathe, he kept telling me. Breathe.

I breathed,
all the while struggling with my inner monster
which came up from my depths,
putting up a fight.
Slowly, my mind calmed
and I broke down the walls.

Even so, it was not completely.
It took my two dogs
to break them down completely.
A few months having them,
one day I looked inside me
and I did not see the walls.