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#trauma
If you don't heal what hurt you, You'll bleed on people who didn't cut you.
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Jun 25, 2019
Jun 25, 2019 at 3:35 PM UTC
Healing
I am a moth Whose wings are folded paper. Sturdy enough to fly, yet tears with the slightest touch. I open my wings So, you can see the patterns. Let you see vulnerability in exchange for nectar. You see open wings and grab them. pluck the edges of the paper and release me. I am a moth Whose wings are healing. Every flight ends with wings bleeding. Thought you were a flower, soft and sweet. But you were a flame burning holes through me. I try to fly But your light burns too bright, I'm blinded, I fly straight through. You burn my wings in two. And you walk away while I scream. Yet you told me You loved moths like me. Only 15, haunted by memory of my wings being ripped from me. your handprint burned into where my wings should be.
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Jan 31
Jan 31, 2026 at 11:28 PM UTC
Burnt wings
Uncertainty fills the air And suddenly I'm not so sure. Nostalgia begins to decay But why? Heavy, heavier... I inhale and sigh with, what, exasperation? Creation? These are all mere distractions To prevent myself from colliding With myself, With how I feel. Emotional trauma, Part I - Coming soon to a childhood near you! We laugh it off But it does not leave us. Nothing can leave us As easily as you walked away That night. I will not forget what I saw. Engraved in my brain Causing me to crumble Tumble, tumble... Crash.
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Feb 7, 2015
Feb 7, 2015 at 12:06 PM UTC
Crash
Now here you come again to fetch me from the sea, Ballast in my bones, this girl was born to sink; A cautionary tale, I slip between the wood, Limbs whittled thin and feet stained with soot. But never-mind the waif; she waxes so pale Drunk on dejection, I ponder the veil Leaden and listless, for the sirens will sing: Amaranthine is the color I bleed for the sea. So I’ll spit out my sorrows wherever they listen, Pumped me with pills and said that they fixed it. The darlings have died off; the dolls are all broken, Just left is me, thin-skinned and soft spoken. And I’d rather lick knives than chew on love’s gristle, Like a dog on a chain, I’d run when you whistle. Far from it now, yet lost in the maze: Chasing ways out for the rest of my daze.
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Dec 18, 2022
Dec 18, 2022 at 2:18 PM UTC
Anecdotal Evidence
**** doesn’t always hide At parties and outside clubs **** doesn’t always hide In dark alleys and empty parking lots Sometimes it is right in front of you But you choose to look the other way **** doesn’t always hide Behind the faces of strangers in the night Sometimes it is hiding behind the closed doors Of your uncles Cousins Fathers And brothers **** isn’t always loud- Screaming, yelling, and crying Sometimes **** is quiet- Gasping for air and silent tears
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Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 12:14 AM UTC
**** Doesn’t Hide (trigger warning)
All along my trigger was you and I can't stand it To this subconcious fear I light up and take a hit Tumbling forever I never thought this would quit Because I thought I could distinguish love from ********
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Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 8:56 AM UTC
Pull the Trigger on PTSD
If there were a language for walls, It would mumble, Per broken jaws. The sun would shine through fragmented holes, A windows' lone goal? To magnify heat, Til' all was engulfed. With confirmed dead inside, None knock, as they've read inscribed: "Family tree, Difficulty, Unavailable." "Family business, Buy one, One comes free, Fire wood sale."
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Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 12:23 AM UTC
Family Business
A broken little heart entangles his tears, that come from a person that he'll never see. Wet rain boots and ***** feet make him forget about the darkest nights. His bed and blankets are like souvenirs from home; a house he'll never remember. Lies and "I'm sorry"s are trapped in his hair, dangling behind his ears, whispering such morbid pain among his lullabies. With every cry he's screamed for you, can you even hear him? He's afraid to sleep alone, as the TV erases nightmares oozing from his eyes, do you care at all? Lost toys and old photographs make him plead; Oh, but why? He'll never understand the love he couldn't have, the love you wouldn't give-
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Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 5:07 PM UTC
Oh, But Why?
he took my heart and crushed it between the hands that touched me, That I thought loved me, but he only wanted to **** me, I'm hurting but I can’t scream, my words have been silenced, but my thoughts won’t stay quiet like a ship lost at sea, I can’t forget what he did to me, its a current pulling me under, while my heart has been torn asunder The way his actions, his words, they burrow under my skin and fester like an infection. The way they haunt me, no matter how hard I try to forget them.
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Feb 14
Feb 14, 2026 at 10:30 AM UTC
9:49am
Dear Dad, That’s all I ever wanted you to be. A dad, my dad. I didn’t expect you to be a great dad, or even a good dad, but you never made any attempt to be anything close to a dad at all. You did try to be other things to me though. A dictator, a manipulator, even a ****** partner. You may say that I wanted it, you might even actually believe that, but I assure you that my compliance was not an indication of my enjoyment. Compliance was simply the only option you gave me. I saw the way you looked at me long before you ever put your hands on me, but you waited. You waited until you’d pushed me to the brink of insanity. You made me question my reality so much that I’d believe anything you told me. Then on top of that, you found a way to make everyone in our family question every word that I ever uttered in preparation for the day that I’d tell them what you’d done because you knew that eventually, I would. You planned out every piece of what you did so perfectly. Even after I’d come out with the truth you made sure that the walls around me crumbled before yours did. All I ever wanted was for you to be my dad, but you couldn’t even give me that.
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May 10, 2023
May 10, 2023 at 5:57 PM UTC
Dear Dad
I know I was just a game Player 2 felt just the same Scared of my window And my Windows Worried by empty streets And data sheets Are my files compromised? Or is it just my brain, CPU rotting again.
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Sep 25, 2018
Sep 25, 2018 at 9:46 AM UTC
White Lies, Black Hat
2 men, that's it. 2 men have known me, inside, they fit. Doped out of my mind; it's hard to recall. Bits and pieces, flashes of memory. I was a living rag doll. Barely breathing, he takes me from behind. Pulls my hair, and says, "I'm gonna make you mine!" I think it happened three times, but who really knows? When your brain's as high as mine goes. I can't call it **** I was a willing participant. Numb to the bones, so with it I went. When it all fell apart; my secrets exposed, he wrote me something that was no longer prose. His words were razor blades, slicing the skin with ease. I kept myself in my own prison; over, my heart began to freeze. "A willing **** victim", is what he called me. Sick to my stomach for allowing him in, I lay my head on the pillow to cry for a 5 year old sin.
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Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 12:02 AM UTC
Willing **** Victim
driving down a windy road 35 miles per hour at seven thirty in the evening with flowers and balloons in the back seat shouldn't have ended with me being suspended sideways for thirty minutes while they tried to make it safe to get me out of what was left of my first car and no matter how many times i draw a bath i can't get rid of the feeling of my left hand covered in my own blood and the small slivers of glass that are still in my hands or the swollen over-sized bruises that adorn my legs and my face and regardless of the scent of lavender and apples i cant look at my damaged body anymore did you ever really love me at all?
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Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 1:37 AM UTC
the curious tale of the three minute bath
No, I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t have the desire to see another end; after exhaustive months of getting to know a fictionalised persona, fragmented, so No, I don’t have a boyfriend. The last one hurt and you didn’t see, but that doesn’t proclaim the scar less prominent to me, my feelings numb, I no longer crave the intimacy - detrimental to me. No, I don’t have a boyfriend. The last boys touch was for him not for me and my body still screams cause he won’t let it be and you’ll never understand as the trauma won’t subside and my self esteem is diminished by his lies. No, I don’t have a boyfriend. I humoured a guy who gave it a try but all I could feel was nothing inside and when someone bumps into me sauntering by the unwanted touch still makes me cry. No, I don't want a boyfriend.
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Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 5:33 PM UTC
Dear Grandad...
For as long as I can remember, I've always had this void in my life. It's this empty feeling deep deep down inside of me and no matter how hard I try I cant quite seem to shake it, overconsuming, eating away at me, I can have happy moments when everything seems to be going great, the feelings of not being okay comes back like a head on collision. Theres a constant nag deep down to fill this empty void, anything to make it all better. Trying from hobbies, family, friends, material stuff and just nothing. It's not simple or an easy matter to explain, especially when you get to a point when numbing it out seems to be the better option from having such a hard past, from abuse to ****** trauma. So badly I long for true happiness, no worries. I desperately long for what I see around me, to have not a care in the world. Instead I'm in this dark hole and I cant find my way out, filled with horror, dark, and scary. So consumed with feeling crazy. I tend to put on this act like I'm so happy and I have the perfect life, when in reality that's just not the case. I lash out and I dont mean to. God I just want so badly to be okay. To have never gone through the things I have, instead here I am. Lost in a spiral out of control, a ride I cant get off. One day I will look back and it will just be a memory. Just a part of my past and I can finally say no longer I'm not okay.
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Jun 6, 2019
Jun 6, 2019 at 9:07 PM UTC
Im not Okay
I've inherited my mother's fear And my father's bitterness And he inherited his father's recklessness And his mother's pain And she inherited And he inherited And we've inherited hatred of our own kind Passed down from the terrorists who have colonized the lands and minds and bodies of my ancestors And I can feel the anguish & the effects of this hereditary agony from here; I am ready to heal.
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Dec 4, 2018
Dec 4, 2018 at 7:19 PM UTC
Generational trauma
His confessions were slow and seldom Whereas yours fall rapid and steady From your lips, dipping down To kiss my body His loneliness was everlasting Whereas yours settles for nothing Looks me square in the eyes Daring me not to smile His words left me bruised and blackened Whereas yours find soft healing When you tell me you'll do small things too To make me happy
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Jul 3, 2018
Jul 3, 2018 at 4:03 PM UTC
Punishment
daddy why don't you love me anymore you know mom never did it's almost as if you're dead yet you're still alive you can't protect me from her insults anymore because now, you're the one going along with it
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Feb 5, 2021
Feb 5, 2021 at 10:00 AM UTC
where did you go
SA Trigger Warning I can still remember the couch. The way I cried in my friend's arms when I thought of that couch. Pinned down. Abused. Forcefully used. On the couch. Couch. I still remember going into my apartment alone after. The way my body shaked for nights spent crying in my bed after. At my friend's apartment after. In the hospital after. Years after. After. They say the mind can forget sometimes, but what always remembers the trauma is the body. The one that kicked and fought off the body. The one that layed under the body. The violated body. The tortured body. The unsafe body. The Body After The Couch... was never the same. Not for me to blame. I know that now.
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Sep 15, 2021
Sep 15, 2021 at 2:46 AM UTC
The Violation of My Body Part 2
i find myself reflecting on my girlhood what should’ve been i grieve the girl i could’ve been if these addiction genes didn’t flow so steadily like an unwavering whirlpool it wasn’t your fault your mom didn’t care for you but why couldn’t you care for me we all have ways to cope mine is taking pen to page yours was needle to arm i grieve for the girl you should’ve been for the mom you could’ve been
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Dec 28, 2022
Dec 28, 2022 at 10:12 AM UTC
parallels
i don’t count aloud anymore. i can't stand to hear your name, such a common word. it doesn't matter the context- i still go quiet every time. i used to pick up pennies, called them lucky. i remember picking up a few on our way back to your place. nowadays i don't give them a second glance. it's not their worth i've forgotten. they say one is the loneliest number. is that why you did it? because you felt you’d earned it after all this time being by yourself-- that you deserved it? what about me, did i? i remember exactly what i wore that day: short shorts, a big baggy t shirt. i haven't worn those shoes since (and i so loved them). they were these expensive purple velvet platforms; i'd actually had to beg my mother to buy them for me. "you better wear them", she warned. that day i went home with you was the first time i'd ever worn those shoes. and the last. sorry mom.
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Feb 19, 2017
Feb 19, 2017 at 5:19 AM UTC
The Loneliest Number
Chant that you are brave, Even as your body begins to quake; Exclaim that you need not be saved, Endeavor to alter your own fate. Affirmations deserve more credit; Say anything enough and you'll believe. It's wholly possible to edit, A new response to fear needs to be conceived. Therapy is not at my beck and call, But willpower will help me revise, Prevent me from facing a dastardly fall, A pivoting, terminating demise.
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Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 1:24 PM UTC
Affirmations