Surviving You

I’ve been having nightmares. It happens sometimes. Side effect of trauma, I’m told.

I’ve not told my therapist about it until yesterday, in hopes that avoiding the topic might somehow magically make it go away. Because THAT works. 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️

Today I’ve been thinking of little ways to take my power back. I was reminded of this poem I wrote during a poetry workshop earlier this year.

The prompt was to write a poem in the form of a voicemail. Of course I chose to write to my abuser, because what’s more fun than digging up trauma on a Tuesday?

Trigger Warning: Mention of sexual abuse & trauma.

(Hello, no one is available to take your call.
Please leave a message after the tone.)

Hey, um, I don’t know if this is still your number…
I know it’s been like 14 years or something.
And if I’m being honest, I didn’t really want to make this call –
I still don’t.
Everything in me wants to hang up right now,
but my gut is begging me to stay,
because there’s something I have to say to you.
Something heavy that lives inside the black hole
where time stands still,
where tiny heart-soldiers stand guard
in case you return.
So here goes…

I survived.
And I’m not sure what that even means,
but I know at least it means I’m here –
whatever, wherever here is.
I just know
my ringtone is a 4-year-old’s laughter,
because I need to know
that something is still okay in the world,
because you changed the definition of okay.
And I’m not okay.

I hope, wherever you are, this finds you.
I hope you feel the tremble in my voice,
the terror in my nightmares,
the freeze in my startle,
the tears in my bloodstream.
I hope you feel the nothingness
of the years you stole from me.
There’s nothing there.
Do you know how heavy nothing is?
How much strength it takes to carry nothing
from one year to the next,
until you’re 32 years old but you go to bed at 8
because the exhaustion and heaviness
that weighs on your soul
is crushing the life out of you?

But I survived.
And I’m still surviving you.
And I’m still trying to figure out what that means
because the part of me that hid in the closet
wearing only my skin,
still catches your scent sometimes,
and it sends me to a dark place.
So much darker than my tiny closet,
so much darker than this dark hole
where the memory should be,
but isn’t.
They say trauma can do that to a person.
That’s what you were: trauma.

And I know you had your own trauma.
People don’t do what you did
if they didn’t have their own trauma.
That’s not to say it’s okay.
That’s not to say it was right
or not fucked up in every way.
But you had your own trauma,
and I’m sorry for that.
I’m sorry for what they did to you –
whoever “they” were.

I just recently started calling you by name,
And even then, only to my therapist.
Because I don’t think you deserve
to take up space in my story.
I don’t think you deserve that kind of credit.

Because my story isn’t about you.
My story isn’t about you.
My story isn’t about you.

It’s about me.
I survived.
I’m surviving.
I’m learning how to live with this hole in my chest
that reminds me every day that you exist.
My story is about me living.
My story is about me.
This is me living.

Anyway, please don’t call me back.
I just wanted to say…
I hope you find a way to live with yourself, too.