Palms up
His hands were palms up
So was his face
So in context,
I guess it wasn't so weird
to see him in surrender
In context,
His white skin didn't contrast
so much as it might on any other day
to sunlight
or Falling stars
His fingers were curled
I noticed
Like he had been holding some invisible wall
Like he had wanted to say
"Pause."
When pause would be his life
until he renewed his membership
on the corporeal plane.
His eyes were dark
Again, no surprise
Though I wish the light had taken his
and grasped his hand
and led him to knowing
that Palms up is how
we should live
not how we should die.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
On trauma
I will write this as a beginning to an end. I have a feeling it will take a while to heal and move past, but I am trying.
I am attempting to move past trauma as a marker of my personality. With some insight from good friends I am starting to realize it's a crutch, it's a block and more than anything it is an undying pain that does not fade or go away in time.
I write this piece as a person who has been there, but also as an advocate.
For those of you who ask the question of "why now?!?" to a girl who has attempted suicide while in a warm loving home after having experienced ::insert multitude of abuses and traumas here:: throughout her life prior to this moment.
I tell you this. I tell you that trauma is not instances. You do not survive it.
If people thought about trauma as a soul-wound that would be closer to the truth.
You do not live through it or remember bad memories as an adult or person who is no longer experiencing the trauma. I live it everyday and it has become like a filter through which I breathe, speak and interact. To be traumatized is to live in trauma. When a peson who has "been through worse times in their life" finally acts in a way that displays his or her pain. He or she is acting on an accumulation of daily horrors which often times cannot be recounted, cannot be moved past and cannot be deactivated for that person. Sometimes the person has lived through worse situations. I would pose this, however. It can be worse to try and live normally when all that is weighing on the mind. It can be hard for me to walk around and eat food, carry books in my hand and have a normal job. I feel like I am playing The Sims. I feel like ti isn't me. I feel like there is this little person who still lives in a house of horrors who has neither climbed out of it nor overcome it like some tragic hero. I think people see 'trauma survivors' as people who have come through hell to live a normal life. I do not live a normal life. I live a life I could see as normal if I could only attach to it. I cannot attach to a story that doesn't seem true to how I feel inside. So then, does it make sense why someone may commit violent of self-destructive acts after trauma has ceased? I think it is a rebellion, for me, to being normal when one is not congruent with their internal self.
More later!!
I am attempting to move past trauma as a marker of my personality. With some insight from good friends I am starting to realize it's a crutch, it's a block and more than anything it is an undying pain that does not fade or go away in time.
I write this piece as a person who has been there, but also as an advocate.
For those of you who ask the question of "why now?!?" to a girl who has attempted suicide while in a warm loving home after having experienced ::insert multitude of abuses and traumas here:: throughout her life prior to this moment.
I tell you this. I tell you that trauma is not instances. You do not survive it.
If people thought about trauma as a soul-wound that would be closer to the truth.
You do not live through it or remember bad memories as an adult or person who is no longer experiencing the trauma. I live it everyday and it has become like a filter through which I breathe, speak and interact. To be traumatized is to live in trauma. When a peson who has "been through worse times in their life" finally acts in a way that displays his or her pain. He or she is acting on an accumulation of daily horrors which often times cannot be recounted, cannot be moved past and cannot be deactivated for that person. Sometimes the person has lived through worse situations. I would pose this, however. It can be worse to try and live normally when all that is weighing on the mind. It can be hard for me to walk around and eat food, carry books in my hand and have a normal job. I feel like I am playing The Sims. I feel like ti isn't me. I feel like there is this little person who still lives in a house of horrors who has neither climbed out of it nor overcome it like some tragic hero. I think people see 'trauma survivors' as people who have come through hell to live a normal life. I do not live a normal life. I live a life I could see as normal if I could only attach to it. I cannot attach to a story that doesn't seem true to how I feel inside. So then, does it make sense why someone may commit violent of self-destructive acts after trauma has ceased? I think it is a rebellion, for me, to being normal when one is not congruent with their internal self.
More later!!
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