This analysis thing is driving me crazy. I thought it was supposed to make me feel better. Transform me into some kind of happy woman. But, it's just an expensive fifty minutes of non-stop pain. I mean I'm paying someone to stick pins in my head.How sick is that?

I started going 'cause I couldn't deal with the war. The newspapers, the radio, the TV made me realize how frightened I was of dying. I'm just a dried up old prune, shriveled and wrinkled and crows feet around the eyes without the Jane Fonda youthful fifty look and I'm going to die.

The newspapers were the worst. `Allies go in for the kill.' Then it was `Iraqis reel under invasion.' Every headline brought me a step closer to death. My death. I panicked. For a long time I couldn't figure out why. It isn't just that I'm against this stupid Bush and Blair war or that I lived in Baghdad for years. And to be really honest and I suppose this analysis is supposed to make me honest then I don't think it's because I'm afraid to die. What difference would my death make? I haven't even figured out who I am and how I am and where I'm going and I don't even think I'm alive yet.

It's pretty hard at night with the Gulf News burning holes in my eyeballs. I fall asleep with the TV on. I can't turn it off 'cause I might miss something. Maybe they're going to bomb us and the TV people will tell me what to do. You know. Crawl under the bed. Stand under the doorway. Don't drink the water. Wear gas masks. Whatever.

Every night I watch Scud missiles crashing into Baghdad. I see all these women screaming, running down the street - desperate to get out, not just away from the war, away from everything.

One woman's face keeps haunting me. A plain face, not pretty really, not very expressive. Well, maybe rather sweet. But, also kind of weak and sometimes it verges on simpering. Polly. I remember Polly. I'd forgotten her. I'd forgotten that part of my life. Why the hell did that freak have to come back into my life? She brings back my past. The past I desperately want to forget. I'm no longer that person. That person should be dead and long gone. Please, I want to get on with my own life now. Please promise me I've moved on. Please make Polly go away.

Nineteen years have gone by. Isn't that long enough? I should have been able to wipe it out. And now, because of fucking Polly's face, it's still there. Nothing has changed. Outside there's another Bush stampeding across the globe, inside there's another fantasy keeping me away from reality.