Trauma lives on in our bodies
In sometimes unexpected places
It doesn’t just reside
In the malfunctioning lump
Of electrified meat
Encased in my skull
Each part of my body
Seems independently determined
To avoid
To protect me from
Vulnerable or defenceless moments
When the speaker at a training event
Asks the participants in the room
To close their eyes
Partake in a thought experiment
The trauma resides in my eyelids
Which I cannot will to shut
I stare down at the floor
Eyes open in unwilling resistance
The simple act of closing them
In a room full of strangers
Is more than my body can bear
When going on long car rides
The trauma resides in my jaw
Compulsively chewing gum
To stop myself falling asleep
In the passenger seat
Maybe I can retain
Some small semblance of control
Over my body
Over what happens to it
As long as I remain awake
As long as I remain alert
The trauma resides
In that small space near my nape
Where your fingers curled
That one time
Sinking into my flesh
Leaving marks for days
On the rare occasions
I let anyone close enough
To touch me there
It feels as though
My entire spine erupts
Shooting out jagged barbs of panic
Isn’t it funny how we can train our brain
To forget things
To bury things where they cannot be retrieved
But they will still linger on
In another form
Imprinted into our very bones and muscles
Sometimes I find myself thinking
How nice it will be
To finally be free of this body
Which stopped feeling like my own
Long ago
Do what you like with my body
When I am dead
I tell people
As though
They hadn’t already while I was alive
Nov 30, 2020
Nov 30, 2020 at 1:41 PM UTC
I am not a blank canvas
For you to paint your ideal upon
I am not a hollow soul
For you to live vicariously through
I regret to inform you
I have my own ******* agenda
Sep 27, 2020
Sep 27, 2020 at 5:41 PM UTC
You discarded your faith
And picked up the bottle
Replacing one spirit for another
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020 at 4:43 AM UTC
What drew you to this job?
Truthfully, survival
I lie and say
I’ve always been passionate about textiles
Like the pretentious clothing this company creates
My answer is carefully tailored to appeal to my market audience
Yesterday I was passionate about data entry
Tomorrow I’ll be passionate about customer retention and management
I’ve learnt to lick the boot that pins me down in place
What does your dream job look like?
I don’t bother telling them that I no longer dream of labour
I recite the appropriate buzzwords
Sense of progression
Work-life balance
Meaningful connections
Bile rises in my throat
What do you hope to achieve in life?
My father wasted away his best years in a job that landed him in hospital
A heart attack and redundancy payout all the thanks he got
All so he could eventually retire and do what he actually loved; woodworking
He’d never been able to make a career of it
He couldn’t find a ‘market’ for it
Maybe it was because he never learnt to market himself, to sell himself
Not in that sense
Instead he sold himself
He sold his body to a timber mill
Maybe he thought it would be temporary
But then he had to give up his woodworking
Because working the wood at the mill left him exhausted
He had to sell his soul for decades until the system finally let him be
I want something different than what the system offers
But there is no alternative to the system
It offers me 50 flavours of consumption
32 different shades of participation
But no option not to consume
Not to participate
I no longer have lofty ideals
When I was young I wanted to be a famous writer
I wanted to travel and see the world
Now I just want to exist
But even my very existence comes at a cost
To merely exist I am still expected to participate
To consume and be consumed
Sell myself to whoever will pay
for what little I have to offer
Thank you for your time
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020 at 12:39 AM UTC
I’ve been numb for days now
I started picking at old memories just to feel something
Kicking mental rocks over
To see if remnants of you would crawl out
I’ve been dropping poison in my tea
Just to help me stay asleep at night
But no elixir is a fixer
And each morning I roll over into your absence
Time heals all wounds they tell me
But really time wounds all lovers
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020 at 12:36 AM UTC