upon waking, i could feel glass in my lungs
small, sharp shards prickling the breaths from my chest and
stealing them away from me—
like some stolen innocence i remember once was mine;
but that was years ago, now
i've been ruined for a long time

i don't sleep very well, and i don't-
don't really wake up very well, either
particularly as we accelerate towards winter
and the only thing i can associate the cold and the dark with
is childhood and threat,
and my school teachers called it Seasonal Depression
but my therapist knows i'm always depressed
Depression is a long-time cuddle buddy;
she's kept me company through trauma.

my therapist tells me that
the cold and dark, they're incentive to flashbacks
too many nights, only single digits in age, forced
to sit in the frost-bitten shadows of an alcoholic's living room
with the AM hours throwing bloodied ***
and violence, through a TV screen
and i still remember the crippling ache of empathy,
watching that little robot boy's family abandon him:
lost in the woods, found only to be beaten.

i breathed through the glass in my lungs,
and never could quite let go of the memory,
nor the popping eyes and crashing cars
or the bleeding walls and possessed children;
wondered, briefly, if maybe some strength could one day possess me
and make my father see i was worth more
than a black-blue shadow in his home, and an accessory in his favourite bars