Welcome, October. A month when the colours change and the air feels cooler. When you wrap yourself tighter to protect against the slight bite that now fills the place where you stand. The darker evenings have crept in like shadows along walls. There is a change. A noticeable change, as if a switch has been invisibly flicked from somewhere hidden out of sight.

A month with its full allocation of days. With no escape.

Oranges and browns. The leaves begin to fall, filling pavements and kerbs with their dry rustling. On dry days, they crunch underfoot. Birds migrate to warmer climates. And then there is the sky. I call it the October sky. The lighter blue with wispy white clouds and the lower sun, burning orange as it slowly sets, so much sooner now. Its blinding reflection on a wet road.

And October brings with it pain. A reminder of something painful. A moment when my life changed in a heartbreaking way. When a childhood was snatched.

October was my change. The change in colours. The change in the invisible space that nobody can see. The torturous pain that replaced the warm blanket with a shuddering fear. The falling leaves are my falling tears. Heavy, unfiltered, carrying a grief that never quite leaves.

And October takes me back to that twelve year old child. That little girl who never understood and never knew.

It is not the act that fills the image, but the sky that stayed with me. That late October afternoon as I looked out of my bedroom window. The light blue, never ending sky. Scattered white clouds, fluffy and welcoming. The sun setting over an expanse of fields ahead. That was the only place I dared to look.

The orange glow became a burning resentment and fear in the years that followed. And yet, unlike the migrating birds, I cannot escape to a different place to experience a different sky.

How do you escape something that will always cover you, envelop you, suffocate you?

It is as if the air has been sucked out of my lungs. Fighting was never an option then, and even now I struggle against the trigger you bring with you every single year. The horror of that feeling still lives within every ounce of my body. The touch that was never gentle. The painful reminder of those words from behind me, as all my eyes could do was focus on the October sky. The betrayal of those moments.

And then it was over.

But when it was over, darkness filled the bathroom. My squinting eyes were met with bright red against white tissue. The touch was now physically painful.

I lost something in October.

October, the polysemous month. A month of colours and change, crispness and pumpkins. Yet a month of loss, hurt and betrayal by the man I called Dad. A month when a childhood was lost to an unthinkable act.

And now, October, I must survive you again.

I must survive the memory of you.