The Prisoner Within

by Buff (30-H-2)

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You have asked, "Who is Buff?" Although I have known her for many years I find it difficult to describe her to others. To me she is a haven of tranquility a quiet arbor and a mother confessor to whom I can run in times of need. She is the 'secret place' of child- hood, the attic on a rainy day. She is a place for laughing, for thinking, for wondering, and a crying place gracefully blended into one serene totality. Through her eyes I am able to see, with crystal clarity, the world naked, its hypocrisy scoured away and with the underlying truth, in its strange marriage of beauty and horror, spread before me in panoramic dissarray.

Her birth is shrouded in the mist of bygone days. It was а long birth, seemingly without beginning. Nervousness prevailed and worry was there too.

She has always existed. Even before her birth she was there. At first she was something less than the slight breeze which causes the heart to whisper at the sight of beauty. Wind chimes at dusk and the sounds of the setting sun. I did not know her then so she sought stronger ways to gain recognition. She struggled within me seeking some means of greater expression. She toyed with my desires and through them voiced her yearnings to jump rope in a white dress, to hold a doll, to bake cookies and to thread daisy chains. Her pleas became louder and my heart pounded in its cage. She taunted me at all times seeking to share me while I tried to immerse her in an ocean of masculine pursuits.

For a long time she was bewildered, she held her tongue. She sat, pouting, elbows to knees, in the deepest recess of my mind. At the slightest parting of her lips in preparation for a word, I would drench her with torrents of technical date or perhaps drag her off to play football. But, in the face of these masculine indignities her infinite patience grew strong and, while her tears flowed from my eyes, we grew together to maturity.

I found that by maintaining a continuous round of activity I could escape her for considerable periods. She, more lonely than I, tapped her foot while I studied engineering. She shook her head

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