From: Silver Fox 
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 19:13:56 -0400
Subject: NEW- Prayers of a Tear-stained Youth (1/1) VA

Title: "Prayers of a Tear-stained Youth"
Author: Kathleen Brown
Rating: G
Classification: VA. Young Mulder
Distribution: Gossamer. All others ask.
Feedback: Please. kathyb@raven.cybercomm.net
Spoilers: Nope.
Summary: Prayers of a Tear-stained Youth. What makes a man the way he is?
Dedication: To the one I love.
Author's Notes at End.

-=-=-=-=-=-
Prayers of a Tear-stained Youth.

    Fitfully he turned, his legs tangling in the thick layers of quilt,
shivering and burying his face into his pillow, trying to muffle the sound
of his sobbing. Tears poured down his cheeks, settling in pools on the white
pillowcase until they cooled so when he turned, they made icy contact with
the raw flesh of his face.
    He shivered and pulled his legs close, feeling goosebumps rise, running
one lightly-furred leg across the other, enjoying the rough, prickly
contact, letting it comfort him in a world he could not feel otherwise.
    His hair tangled with every anxious turn of his body until he knew it
would never be the same. Pain shot through his gut, drawing his legs to his
chest, pulling sobs from his chest even as he fought not to breathe, fought
to hold his pain inside.
    His words, unspoken yet desperate, cried out to the only one a young man
can trust. The last confidence in a long line of failures, the only hope of
a child unable to speak.

    Oh, God, please help me.... you're the only one left who will listen to
me.... all I need is love... no one gives it but you.... it hurts to be so
lonely..... Sam is gone.... mom and dad don't care about me..... all I have
left is the hope that you, love me, God. I need you. I can't live this
lonely life. If it weren't for you I would have slit my wrists a year
ago.... I need the hope that you give me.... God, please help me through
this.... help me to survive this.....
    I don't need anything else in life... I just need your love.... I just
need _love_.... only love... I need love like others need food... I'll die
if I don't have the hope that someone, somewhere, cares for me.... you have
to protect me, God, or else I'm going to die.....
    I'm just a human.... just a boy.... I don't know what to do with
myself... no one cares for me but you..... show me that there's love...
.show me that there's someone else who will help me though this....
    Am I the only person alive who needs this? Does no one else need this as
much as I? What happened to make me this way? Why does it have to hurt so
much?

    He turned and writhed beneath the sheets, tears beginning anew, the pain
in his gut centering around his bladder, clutching it tight with pain,
forcing his legs tighter together not with need, but with the force of the
pain inside of him as it sought some physical pain to compare with its
power...

    Why won't someone love me? I give my love so freely.... anyone who is
willing to talk to me is worthy of my love, everyone I meet I give a piece
of myself.... why doesn't anybody see what I want from them? I give them
everything I have and still they can't bear to give me even a droplet of
their love? What makes me unworthy? What makes me so wrong?
    All I ask for is love and I get nothing in return. I can't change who I
am, God, and I can't bear to die just yet.... everyone hurts me with their
inability to love, and I can't stand to think that someone else might be
hurt because I wasn't there to love them....

    Give me strength, God. Give me love. Let me do something good. Give me
strength. Give me love.

Copyright Kathleen Brown 10-10-98

Notes: Last night was not a good night. Names and faces have been changed to
protect the innocent.

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