trauma

Poetry, Uncategorized, Writing

They say it’ll eat you up inside –

That it’s not therapist advised –

But the therapists don’t email back –

And my promise is already charcoal black.

 

So leave me my spite –

Let me keep living in spite –

Because what happened when I was young (and when I first realised the war was far from won)

 

Drives drives drives me onwards –

Teaches me how to disobey orders –

Tells me that to die is to die (and that if you don’t laugh you might as well cry)

 

No new beginnings and no fresh starts –

But the smallest resilience from broken hearts –

To deny what made me?

Too clean, too easy (let me bleed let me curse let me drown in it).

Poetry, Writing

how do you explain anxiety to someone?
is it the hitch in your breathing and then
the tightness in your chest
as you try to catch yourself
and remind yourself that you’re still standing
but your legs want to fold
and your brain is telling you that it’s not safe
and you haven’t been safe for a long time now
you can’t remember what it felt like not to feel the gnaw
and you can’t remember when it switched from
wanting not to cause a scene
to wanting to cause a scene
because if you collapse you get to leave
people will notice and care and treat you like spun sugar
but when you make your legs stride and your lungs burn
nobody is going to help you
and you’d cry if you had the air to do so
but instead you keep walking
and in that moment
you’d face a firing squad
because a bullet to the brain
is easier than meeting the eyes of a stranger