A poetic glimpse into the prison of trauma


“Are you ever coming back?”
I never fully left –
You made sure of that

You trapped my past self behind bars
Silent screams echoing
Swapped innocence for scars

My stolen youth, still frozen in time
Waves from your stones reverberate
Rippling across decades, resounding in my mind

I carry your shrapnel in my body
Fingerprints on my arm, bruised indentations
Voices in my head, faces in flashbacks I see

Depositing love, I withdrew pain
Maybe that’s why you say “give until it hurts”
I swear, my only sin was trusting

Reaching through time you stole
Marring moments that were mine
Claiming my emptiness was a God-sized hole

You took away what I didn’t even have yet
That was my inheritance, my change you spent
Hating a version of me you hadn’t even met

Reducing the chances she would ever be born
Protecting your agenda, eliminating threats
Intimidated by a woman who can weather the storm

Mining my soul for power and control
Extracting what you needed from my lifeless form
You felt tall by pushing me low

The old me is still back there, a square in your quilt
You’ve stitched her in between colorful demons
Hemmed in, a brick in the empire you built

I’m cursed, but I swear I wasn’t born with this fate
Cornered, held down, I couldn’t escape
Fangs sunk in deep, cold venom contaminates

Now it oozes out my pores, infecting those I love most
I cower, I lash out, I hate this master
I’m contagious, watch out, don’t get too close

Everything I touch crumbles under my weight
I test each foothold in case the floor falls through
As I approach, healing waters evaporate

Splash in the rain only to find pools of blood
I breathe in sweet nectar only to cough on dust
The oasis was a mirage, I sink into mud

Every shadow looms like a monster, every tree a beast
The wind chases me, strangers leer
Each new sound a potential threat – dangers never cease

Is joy even real or are y’all pretending?
I have a vague a distant memory
Is happiness a carrot on a stick, to keep us running?

New life springs up in tender green leaves
Delicately sprouting forth, from my younger, decaying corpse
I lay petals on her grave, wipe snot on my sleeves

Life is so cruel and unfair
She should never have had to die
But if she didn’t, would I be here?