#generationaltrauma - Hello Poetry

My biggest fear is being buried alive When I see scenes in movies where that happens, I can’t breathe, it feels as if the walls are closing in Claustrophobia makes my brows glisten with moisture Like the dew on strands of grass in the early mornings But some people spend their lives buried alive, Like my father, who buries his emotions Subsequently teaching his little girl to do the same Cramming each tear, frustration and sorrow down Forcibly making them fit into a container Like placing your weight on a moving box while taping it Lest all of the contents spill over, like angry lava pouring down the sides of Mt. St Helen’s My grief had no room to fit in the box, my box That soft spring day with sunshine beaming down I don’t think he had room to place his grief in either So everyone had to bleed as he did Me, the girl in my history class, The blonde from debate, her friend too, The upperclassman I always saw opening her locker So I buried my grief, I buried that 16 year old girl that was ***** She had been gutted, ripped open Flesh and muscles split To reveal the bones underneath, the skull of a **** sapien The only proof that she is still human I shoved her entrails back inside of her Sewed her up to stop the blood And buried her I buried her in the fields with the sunflowers, Dug her grave so deep, not even the animals could find her I imagined her becoming a skeleton, losing all of her human features Becoming bare and dry, underneath the soil being baked by the Midwest sun But she’s been alive this entire time She’s been breathing through the lungfuls of dirt The changes of the season, each planetary retrograde and falling star I buried her six feet under, I couldn’t carry all of her grief, her tragedy, her pain So I condemned her, caged her Like an exotic animal left to pace its enclosure I buried her alive But she’s been knocking- No, pounding Pounding with two balled up fists Filled with rage of biblical proportions Disturbing the Earth, making the flora shake She has been the thunder roaring like a hungry beast The torrents of rain slicing through the air The monstrous crashing of waves slamming against the shore The deafening smash of boulders colliding with other boulders She has been the screaming in my nightmares The flashbacks that I can’t erase The thoughts swirling in my head until it aches She has been the guttural moans that escape my lips When I can’t breathe and my cheek is pressed to the bathroom tile She has been the burning ember That I feel in my chest The tiny beads of sweat coating my palms, Making them slick She has been the angry, thrashing bird Trapped within the walls of my chest Like a caged bird Hitting the interior near my heart Like windowpanes and glass doors Once I finally heard her screams I returned to the burial site I didn’t need a grave marker or a headstone I could feel the vibrations Underneath the ground Shaking everything above I’ve unearthed her My trowel delicately parting the earth Revealing the skeleton of the girl I once was All of the bones still intact As the soft bristles of my brush Wipe away the soil and earth The first gentle touch She’s felt in over a decade I buried myself alive Like the ancestors before me But I’ve been breaking apart the soil Listening to it whisper its secrets Taking the weight off of that little girl’s shoulders She was buried and erased But she will be erased no more There is no longer a box or a cage Because she was never meant to be condemned to one I have breathed life back into her Reanimated her bones Brought her back from the Midwestern earth

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May 14

May 14, 2026 at 7:28 PM UTC

CelestialPoetry

Buried Alive

My biggest fear is being buried alive When I see scenes in movies where that happens, I can’t breathe, it feels as if the walls are closing in Claustrophobia makes my brows glisten with moisture Like the dew on strands of grass in the early mornings But some people spend their lives buried alive, Like my father, who buries his emotions Subsequently teaching his little girl to do the same Cramming each tear, frustration and sorrow down Forcibly making them fit into a container Like placing your weight on a moving box while taping it Lest all of the contents spill over, like angry lava pouring down the sides of Mt. St Helen’s My grief had no room to fit in the box, my box That soft spring day with sunshine beaming down I don’t think he had room to place his grief in either So everyone had to bleed as he did Me, the girl in my history class, The blonde from debate, her friend too, The upperclassman I always saw opening her locker So I buried my grief, I buried that 16 year old girl that was ***** She had been gutted, ripped open Flesh and muscles split To reveal the bones underneath, the skull of a **** sapien The only proof that she is still human I shoved her entrails back inside of her Sewed her up to stop the blood And buried her I buried her in the fields with the sunflowers, Dug her grave so deep, not even the animals could find her I imagined her becoming a skeleton, losing all of her human features Becoming bare and dry, underneath the soil being baked by the Midwest sun But she’s been alive this entire time She’s been breathing through the lungfuls of dirt The changes of the season, each planetary retrograde and falling star I buried her six feet under, I couldn’t carry all of her grief, her tragedy, her pain So I condemned her, caged her Like an exotic animal left to pace its enclosure I buried her alive But she’s been knocking- No, pounding Pounding with two balled up fists Filled with rage of biblical proportions Disturbing the Earth, making the flora shake She has been the thunder roaring like a hungry beast The torrents of rain slicing through the air The monstrous crashing of waves slamming against the shore The deafening smash of boulders colliding with other boulders She has been the screaming in my nightmares The flashbacks that I can’t erase The thoughts swirling in my head until it aches She has been the guttural moans that escape my lips When I can’t breathe and my cheek is pressed to the bathroom tile She has been the burning ember That I feel in my chest The tiny beads of sweat coating my palms, Making them slick She has been the angry, thrashing bird Trapped within the walls of my chest Like a caged bird Hitting the interior near my heart Like windowpanes and glass doors Once I finally heard her screams I returned to the burial site I didn’t need a grave marker or a headstone I could feel the vibrations Underneath the ground Shaking everything above I’ve unearthed her My trowel delicately parting the earth Revealing the skeleton of the girl I once was All of the bones still intact As the soft bristles of my brush Wipe away the soil and earth The first gentle touch She’s felt in over a decade I buried myself alive Like the ancestors before me But I’ve been breaking apart the soil Listening to it whisper its secrets Taking the weight off of that little girl’s shoulders She was buried and erased But she will be erased no more There is no longer a box or a cage Because she was never meant to be condemned to one I have breathed life back into her Reanimated her bones Brought her back from the Midwestern earth