Personal Story: Altars of Sacrifice

By Amy Hudock
Originally published in A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers

I can’t sleep. Again.

I sit on my upper front porch, door open so that I can hear if my daughter wakes up and calls for me from her room. In the pasture across the street, horses graze in the moonlight. I hear their soft snorts as they move lazily along the fence, heads down, jaws grinding.

I remember taking my sleeping bag to the barn when I was child and hearing the same soothing noises as I drifted off to sleep in the hay. Once, I woke in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. My pony, Rainyday, was not at all surprised when I gave him a midnight snack and climbed on his back. As I lay back on his haunches, his slow rolling walk rocked me back toward sleep. Part of me wants to go to the horses now and let them help me end this sleeplessness, this anxious being alone in the dark.

Personal Story: Letting Go (originally published in Equus Magazine)

by Amy Hudock

I climb into the saddle from the mounting platform usually used by children in wheelchairs. I settle in, pick up the reins, set the cast on my arm straight, and ask for forward. The motion of the horse starts a glittering splash of hormones and chemicals and vibrations. My hands become stiff and ungiving. My legs tighten despite my brain ordering them to relax. Adrenaline heightens my senses, and I feel my horse underneath me, a coiled spring wound tight, dangerously close to expanding. I want get off this horse, to run away, to do anything to save myself. I fear him like I’d be afraid of a man pointing a gun in my face.