I am on the receiving end
of an emotional hierarchy
on the power dynamic of control
and it is based at the core foundation
of my childhood
rooted inside the deep seeded
fear of isolation and abuse.
I have come a long way since then.

Since the corner
of my shut closet
became a museum
for these guilt pangs
in my 7 year old stomach.

But the shouts of my parents
still haven't diminished
and neither have these pangs.

A constant reminder
I am closer to my childhood
than I am my progress.

So I have to take a step away
from all of these things
putting me back into
that dark closet
into the Eminem show soundtrack
on the 6th grade bus
crying because I didn't feel loved.

I don't want to go back
to not eating for weeks
or showering for a month
just so I could get the attention.

I never had it anyway
so why was I fighting for the nonexistent?
why am I fighting, still now
for the constant validation
and acknowledgment of existence.

I am still closer to my childhood
than I am my progress
and I keep stepping back into
people, place and things that put me there.

every friend and boyfriend
reminding me of my father or my mother
and every minute of isolation reminding me
that there is no lesson that I haven't been taught
from loneliness and inadequacy.

So I should be thankful
I am closer to my childhood than my recovery
because that's where it started,
and for me-
that's where it ends.

Somewhere between the closet space
and basement walls-
I am buried there.

around me are civilians
struggling with what it means
to be normal.

stuck in a loop of society's
standards and how their parents
raised them.

A plethora of mental chaos
and the burden of growing.

around me is myself
struggling with what it means
to be normal.

lost inside the idea
of being in control of something.

Their normal has a face.
It’s an object, or found at a place.

My normal is void of
human characteristics-
it is all solidified inside
this lost memory that
rips my limbic system
into an endless limbo
of hyper vigilance and manicness
I am a vigilante at best.

My normal is foreign.

My normal is a girl
with a slanted face
sitting in class
wondering why
the tip of her pencil
feels like a vice grip-

why the words
from a professor’s
lips sounds like grooming-
when in reality
she's stuck in a trance.

She's stuck inside the time
she got bribed for intimacy

stuck in a time
where she thought trust
was lust and that little girls
we're supposed to be submissive.

She's hanging by the thread of her thoughts
realizing these are memories-
realizing she cannot stitch up the holes inside of them.

That all this bad ****
isn't actually a daydream
that she can just fidget and blink and pinch
her way out of.

So now she has to learn to cope-
while she has an hour & a half
to take an exam and her mind
is void of any information.

She has never been taught
a lesson that she didn't teach herself.

I have never been taught
a lesson that I wasn’t manipulated
into learning.

So forgive me-
Bc my wish to be normal
is your struggle.

Forgive me
because this trauma
isn't a competition
but I can't help feeling like
I'm losing
can’t help but wish I was
in the place of others.

Can’t help but feel like my childhood
is nothing but an ankle monitor
keeping me distant from myself.

I am carrying around this burdening
that no one has any idea what to do with.

I am drowning in the idea
someone else will ever be able to help me.

I'm drowning in the idea of solitude
and independence-

That loneliness will someday
feel like progress.

That this pencil
will no longer feel like a vice grip.

I am choking on the absence of words
just dead air and radio silence.

This salience,
here on this stage-
will swallow me whole.

The only place I can call home.
This type of normal chains itself to me.

I have broken down more walls
than I can count on these fingers
they are too busy clenched into a fist.

I have broken down barriers
in hopes of betterment and redemption
my arms have grown weak under this pressure.

I'm weighing the pros and cons
of survival on the tops of shoulders
so it's safe to say I'm grounded
safe to say these bones feel heavy

I speak only when spoken too nowadays
but the look on my face reads third person omniscient-
anyone can get inside my head
my body language is written that way.
Too fragile to speak up,
Too stubborn to sit down.

I'm tired of these walls
holding me back
and these barriers
keeping me on the outskirts
of my own life.
My mouth is just a drawbridge
these words drown
in the wading water underneath

I have broken down more walls
  than I have written poetry
only to realize I have built them myself
only to realize I have written them myself.

comprehension isn't in your bloodstream you are too busy apprehending these repressive tendencies. Everything is messy lately, and I can't seem to see things clearly. This can't make sense to anyone but me- and it never will. Memories are isolated events. My trauma is a movie only I have seen but everyone tries to write the review of. I'm tired of this being a competition. Like whoever has the most ****** up life wins in this potato sack race to the finish line- I'm far from fine I'm two steps back and trailing even farther behind. Everyone seemed to have had some kind of advantages, these genetics were defective for me, my motor skills and processing delayed and defective see I can seem speak on these things too clearly. Mumbling at the mouth of memory and retention, I'm trying to articulate what's piled on top of my heavy heart and this chest full of weight and ***** slate and angst. I'm having trouble marking the place on his face. I'm having trouble marking the place where I laid, where he laid, where I can find peace. I'm having trouble not having trouble. I'm alone in my struggle too. No one knows you better than you, but no one knows me like I know me and it seems this is factually accurate from an everyone standpoint. Am I okay anymore? Or is this void the only voice I will hear when I am being called back to sleep. Where will these secrets always be kept? Inside of the locks behind my retinas, who the **** forgot the combination to the safe. That would be me.

5 months ago
I discovered I had cptsd-
I have a new name to claim and to become accustomed to.

my mind is wired weird now.
and I can't blame these happenings
on chemical imbalance anymore

this true has held my throat shut.

Everything I knew about myself vanished,
but everything I knew about myself now made sense.

Every step forward was inside of quick sand.
Every step out of it was dragging around *****.

My mind was sheet white and clean slate.

These triggers always align my eye sight
even words can engrave themselves
inside of my head-space.

I am everywhere at once.

Here's the thing,
my prefrontal cortex is stunted
and it's all my childhood's fault.
I would hold resentment or place the blame
on my alcoholic father, or on my abuser-
but I don't have the time or the patience
to entertain anger.
So instead I am sad.

Grudges have been my calling card
since birth and I'm tired
of wearing them like a scarlet letter.

A giant red stain, but in my eyes
and on my face,
everyone knows I am damaged
everyone knows I am deranged.

I walk on spiders
trying not to squish them
knowing **** well,
they could **** me if they wanted.

this ache in my chest sends me backwards,
under covers and into a night
that knows no time zone.
hours mean nothing
to the face of a depression nap.

my hand clings
to my childhood blanket-
when all I've been
trying to do lately
is let my past go.

but there's nostalgia there,
hidden behind the tragedy,  
behind the smell of alcohol
on my father's breathe
and the sound of distain
in my mothers.

there was hope there once-
until I saw what it turned me into.

but is this version of me so bad?
I guess things could've been worse.
I guess all of this pressure
could've turned me a little more numb.

cutting off circulation
at my self-confidence
I've been trying to find a balance.
Dying to find a way to feel
non-restricted.

I guess there are better words
to be used than the ones I do.

But who has time to be pristine,
when someone will find me
messy anyway?

who has time to think,
when I am just
who everyone says I am anyway?

what good is pressure
when you know you
won't live up to all of these
expectations?

I'm wading in the water
awaiting a wave to carry me away-
but these blockades won't budge.

and I'm stuck
sitting in a place everyone wants me to be.
looking like I am happy.

where has this talent gotten me?
where will it even take me?

I have spent too long in the shadow
of someone else that I no longer know myself.

but have I ever?

These losses are never my own,
stuck inside the hands of someone else.

but I am always the person to uncover them-
make a facade out of the remains
I am always the chosen one.

and when that is the case
what am I supposed to feel now?

bereavement is not a luxury I have ever owned-
it has always been stuck in the mouths of others.

so what do I say when grief gets in the way
of my ability to empathize.

what happens when I am too broken up
to put into words
the way I would like to dropkick
this world
in the nuts
and walk the **** away.

the deeper I travel inside of my own head
the harder these things get.

it was his,
they were theirs,
she was hers
and his
and it's
and never mine.

This sorrow is never only mine
because the weight is more heavy
upon those who have lifted this burden.

every single thing
in life makes an impact.

and I have always been
the airbag.