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