#poems about trauma

[waitingforthesunrise]

Love Poem

I wished for a love made of knives — 

Sharp, and deadly. blood feels like pain, which sometimes feels like love, and always like attention.

To say I wish to kill you, but to kiss you first. 

But in the saddest moments, what did I wish? 

To set foot on a doorstep 

And sigh. overwhelmed with the knowledge. 

I have made it, I have traveled to the arms 

Which catch me as I fall 

and brush the rain from my face. 

I lean my forehead against the window, too heavy to cry.      

Someone kisses my shoulder and says, it is not work to care for you. And here are my hands to hold yours. And here is everything else. 

Tell me: does love always carry fear? Can they be divorced? 

If I let you care for me, perhaps I will forget how to do it myself. Perhaps I will have to admit I don’t really know how.

If you leave me, I will sit down and lean my head against a boulder. The moss will hold my fingertips and

they won’t be able to hurt me anymore. 

Flowers will kiss my hair, and after a century I might awake wiser and better and — 

Love, you whisper. It is midnight. And you are tired and very wise (which is why you are unhappy) and perhaps I should tell you that to love is to be vulnerable, which is never truly separate from fear. I can not promise never to hurt you.

But we are strong travelers, still walking side by side.

Fear tastes sweet in the hands of the gentle.  And when the air is like concrete and the walls freeze my bones and panic steals my tongue away from me — 

You will say my name, Ari, but I hear 

Love is a rescue. 

Ari, can you hear me? 

Love is a knife in a sheath. Love is a soul in search of another.

Ari, I’m right here. 

Love is a safety net with holes, a knowledge, an escape, a return. 

Ari, breathe with me. We will be okay.

Love is an attempt 

To look at another, and say —

You are beautiful, and frightening. Lovely, complex, and worthy, worthy, worthy

Like dust motes and constellations. There is no such thing as ordinary when I am with you. 

Ari? 

My hands tighten around yours, but you don’t let go. We will get up, later. Tomorrow, maybe, it will be my turn 

To smooth your hair and say 

Worthy. Wanted. Enough. 

We do not beg each other for love. We do not need to,

But the world is lighter with you.  At least, you’ve taught me how to hold my hands open, and that never leaves.

Love, in its purest form, is a reminder of the truth. 

@dailypoetryforyou

[softsweetwhispers]

You whispered I’m scared of ending up like Mom, and you spoke with more conviction than I could even fake. It filled the space between us along with the other unspoken agreements and admittances we wouldn’t dare say out loud to each other, let alone anyone else. The words grew louder and louder in volume, until they were bigger than the both of us and echoed off the walls Dad repainted after the divorce.

The house is empty, like it always is these days, so we don’t have to worry about prying ears listening. Not that it matters to you — I’ll never say it because maybe part of me is embarrassed to look up to you as much as I do, but I’ve always admired that about you. The only time I’d ever say something like that is when it’s just you and me, but you've always been the better of the two of us — all blonde-haired, blue-eyes, kind boyfriend, not afraid to speak your mind and argue against what’s not right.

Sometimes you and I seem so different, I can convince myself we aren’t related. When I’m standing next to you, all my already jagged edges grow sharp enough to hurt someone and cruel enough to go through with it. I’ve only gotten worse from the things I’ve been through, only allowing myself to become more calloused. I watched you take everything bad that’s happened and wrap them around your limbs to keep you tethered to Earth as you grew. I’ve never been able to do that. Plants wilt under my absent-minded touch and refuse to grow, too scared to come out into the sun. Not only did yours grow, but they thrived, just like you. Purple flowers peek from the vibrant leaves that curl up against you, needy for your attention. You’ve always been selfless enough to give some of it away, but smart enough to keep the rest for yourself. 

I’ve watched you change and grow, becoming less and less like our father. You got his green thumb, his ability to change. I can only hope my dying weeds don’t tangle with the beautiful roots you’ve fought so hard to grow. 

These thoughts hit me with such a ferocity, I am left speechless. With a whispered truth that’s just as much yours as it is mine, I am harshly reminded of all the things that make you my sister. I’m hopeful that there might be something good to come out of this family, but scared for what that might mean for you. 

I can’t possibly do what you’ve just done easily and be that honest. I struggle to find the right series of words to string together. The only things I can think to say only has the potential to make things worse. How do you reassure someone when what they’re worried about is an inevitability? So, in my predictable, cowardly fashion, I don’t say anything; I let your question go answered under the guise of letting my silence speak for itself. I know it doesn’t bother you, anyway — whatever I might’ve said, there’s no doubt you already know. After all, you’ve always understood me better than anyone.  @nosebleedclub prompts, march xxv. DNA

[wr4thofth3lamb]

As I saw my mother tap someone’s child head I nodded, I think, it’s easy to love someone else’s child, it’s the easiest thing to do, cause it’s not yours. I wish I was my mother someone else’s child.

[aseelayelia]

Gaza is in the dark

They cut off fuel from Gaza.

They cut off electricity off Gaza.

They have cut off internet in Gaza. They have cut off all forms of communication with Gaza.

I wish I could have something super deep to say about what is going on.

But it's not deep.

They cut off Gaza from the rest of the world so that we can't bear witness to what they are doing to people in Gaza.

The biggest indicator of future behavior is past one.

Commit genocide

Lie

Deny

Come clean

Rinse,

And repeat.

We will spend the upcoming decades uncovering what is happening now.

The atrocities against Palestinians won't stop until they are stopped.

In years from now,

You will read books about what is happening now.

You will watch documentaries and wonder how.

I won't let you.

I am here to tell you that it will and you will not have the privilege of being surprised.

You watched and stood by.

You stayed silent and didn’t mind.

You don’t get the privilege of innocence.

You don’t get the privilege of surprise.

[aphrodites-serenade]

A Tall Child

I often think about how embarrassing it is for me to yearn for something that was never mine. I mean, I'm not a child anymore. I can't remember the last time I felt like a child. The sight of a child holding hands with their parents shouldn't make me feel hollow, but it does. I see parents hug their children tightly and think, if only my parents did that. I look at my mother, apologizing to my youngest brother as she gently pats his back. She says words I was dying to hear as a kid. Why couldn't you do the same for me? I look at the father and daughter sitting at the table across from me, completely absorbed in their conversation. Even though my own father sits next to me, we act as if we're strangers. I hear my classmates talk about wanting to move close to their parents, how they're glad they supported them this far, how they want to repay them someday and— I can't listen anymore. It's impossible to escape this ideal. Happy families are plastered on screens, hugging and kissing their children. It hurts to see toxic families in movies magically forgive each other and start anew, knowing that this opportunity never existed for me. Is it too selfish to want more than what I received? Is it selfish to mourn over what could've been yours, too?

[psyche-tips-the-candle]

Some days I feel entriely alone

The sort of cold no one else can feel

Sinking down, below skin, below bone

Pulsing in an echo of otherness

The rhythm lurks just under my skin;

The hollow makes its home in my heart

Till I'm outside begging to be let in

Apsrt from myself and everything

This emptiness become a quiet hum

And I sit here feeling guilty, feeling numb

[thepoetryinmyveins]

"I hate you!"

"I hate you!"

"I hate you!"

the words echo in my mind

and even to me, they sound childish

and I know it is because

they come from the side of me

that is still the little girl you left behind.

- A.

[ourburningbridges]

Rose Colored Romance

TW: mentions of domestic violence and s/h

all red flags look normal with rose colored glasses… you deserve better.

He knows when to be tender by the swelling of my lips.

Says we’re making love despite the bruising on my hips.

It feels like I’m in heaven every single night we kiss.

But by the day his horrors stay and lets me slit my wrists.

-I.F.L 🥀

[the-desperate-stargazer]

today, i saw a spider and i pointed it out to someone, and they killed it. they didn't shame me. they didn't terrorise me. they didn't taunt me. they didn't laugh at me. they didn't humiliate me. they didn't gaslight me. today, i saw a spider and someone just calmly killed it.

[nilouave]

azure and violaceous nights bring passions of wind that whisper softly against her skin, when her faltering heart calls out again for him. familiar as self harm, nothing short of self appointed sin.

and where his hurricanes drown the flowers blossoming in her tangled hair, her delicate gaze looks upon the downpours of the secrets within his iridescent stare.

and where the mind bleeds for a moment of ease, she’s left hollowed and haunted like the magnolia trees. cerise skies flood her doe eyes, she’s become only a ghost who dies to please — her porcelain skin became a canvas for bursts of colours, rosy lips brushing against his; he knows he loves her. though she feels the coldness of his past; its’ aura bleeds from his tangled grasp - he’s dying to be loved, to belong at last.

angels sigh warnings to her through silent screams, as he reaffirms the promises he doesn’t keep- seeking nothing short of insolence while she tries to love demons who come to feed on her opalescent, loveless dreams.

[zoe-a-scott]

And your heart struck me like an arrow and I’m burning up inside, with your love slowly killing me from the weakest parts I tried so hard to hide. I never saw myself a mother, a masochist of lineage; but now I carved all the cradles I envisioned of yours in me. I’ve never felt a love like this before I said for the how manyth time. I was never one to learn my lessons until my skin was the ocean sky. Now I lay bare, in the sheets and dust you so gallantly buried me in, and I cursed you out with prayers. I wouldn’t win this war I waged against my judgement days, God knows you were only defending yourself.

[waitingforthesunrise]

I think they must have bargained for my brain 

Before my birth. Sliced it up on a silver table and called the muses to feast

Greedy fingers. Careful eyes. I wonder 

Did they plan, those cunning spirits? Was there a map

Of my bodily heavens, drawn out upon the table. Plotting —

Here, there, anxious, obsession, compulsion, and—

— story. They have must have known

I would turn everything to a story,

Eventually. 

Was that their plan all along? To give me the demons just to watch me bloody my hands?

 I’d make a wounded poet, but maybe pain is the highway to other worlds.

I could turn the heaviest weights into weapons. 

Born a dagger, made a sword. My muses have trained me like the devil

and there is now nothing alive I can fear. 

We were always made of stories, love.

{poem by myself}

@dailypoetryforyou

[softsweetwhispers]

hey mom, do you still remember me, all the way up there in heavenhellpurgatorywhereveryouare, or maybe that's not how memory works when you're dead.

hey mom, it feels like everything is wrong now, everything is different, it's not right, it's - it's complicated, i guess. it's impossible to talk to dad, it's impossible to talk to his now ex-wife, it's impossible to talk, it's impossible to, it's impossible.

hey mom, your daughter tells me i look exactly like you. it makes her cry. i wish i could tell her how guilty it makes me.

hey mom, i told dad i didn't need a therapist, (i've already been thorough two, he tells me it's not working because i'm not receptive to it. or something. another problem, i guess.), but i lied and i think he knows.

hey mom, i'm fucking drowning.

hey mom, i found something i really love and even though it feels like i'm ripping out my insides/ and bent-over-at-the-knees hurling, even though i've sewn my mouth shut at the expense of everyone else, i really do love doing it. i think i might go to college for it. i wrote a poem about you, i'm not sure you would've liked it, though.

hey mom, i realized the other day you won't be there when i graduate.

hey mom, i got a girlfriend. you always took us to church and we weren't raised religious, but you believed and i think sis does too now, or maybe she just uses it as an excuse to get closer to you. i don't know what you thought of gay people, but i like to pretend you would've liked her, even though i'm pretty sure, at this point, you wouldn't be able to form a coherent sentence.

hey mom, do you think if i killed myself I'd see you in heaven? or do you think the stories are true, and I'd go straight to hell?

hey mom, i got a girlfriend. and we have a dog and two cats. and dad has a girlfriend who's a little too young, but we both know she's not gold-digging, and it's obvious they really love each other.

hey mom, it took me five years of fighting, and not crying, and seeing everyone mourn, and hating you, and resenting you, and missing not you, but what could've been, and breaking down silently while everyone was asleep, and hurting myself, and - none of this will change, but i think - it took me five years, but i think i forgive you. mostly.

hey mom, would you be proud?

| k. - @nosebleedclub xxi. questions to ask your mother (DRAFT)

[wr4thofth3lamb]

My mother told me since I was a small kid that I was so hard to love. I hope when I die and I meet the devil he is able to love me. In hell there are mad people and they won’t find hard to love me cause they have done worst things.

[aseelayelia]

Addicted to Tragedy

Am I addicted to tragedy, or is the tragedy addicted to me?

Do I look for the wreckage, or is the wreckage all I can see?

Our planet is burning up and our politicians are arguing if there is heat.

Natural disasters are everywhere yet many aren’t sure if the ground is shaking under their feet.

Thousands are dying yet we question if their death is real,

as we doom scroll through our socials and see our faves score a new brand deal.

With one fist they collect our money and with the other they drain our blood,

as they fire those who dare to speak and drag their names through the mud.

The American dream has turned into an American nightmare we can’t wake up from,

yet our politicians turn down the volume of our suffering and beat the war’s drums.

am I addicted to tragedy, or is the tragedy addicted to me?

do I look for the wreckage, or is the wreckage all I can see?

The writing prompt of @betweenthetimeandsound inspired this poem

[monomorphilogical]

Wrestle the devil

He sways with the raise of his voice when he steps into my space with hands spiderwebbing my face, and he sings it like praise but I know better when he says “baby why'd you wanna leave this place?” so I just wait for the misplaced embrace to erase any trace of his fatal traits. 

Jekyll to his Hyde, tired of being tied to his side as he smiles wide with pride as if I’m already his bride, tired of being terrified as we ride wild through the countryside while I swear I could have died, and he sighed at me all unkind, tired of the night where I cried like a child ‘cause he lied and denied.

Once I was so strong willed, girl who’d never feared and girl so fulfilled, and then he appeared and had me killed, with them skilled hands, voice that sinned from a mouth that always grinned until I was left dimmed and thinned, suddenly he’d cleared all of me that I’d built.

He’s got me on a steep slope and I try not to lose hope sighing "God, I’m stuck with his arms around me like rope and too broke to try and provoke" and then God spoke "there’s several ways to wrestle the devil" so I didn’t settle for peril and imagined I levelled the metal barrel to his vessel.

If I wasn’t so damn naive I'd like to believe I would’ve never been deceived by the thief that won’t let me leave, unease in the fall of my knees when I’m begging please while all that he sees is the tease of my pleas, girl to squeeze until she agrees just trying to appease to some sleaze.

But he always misread the dread and instead I bled in bed when he spread my legs, and now I feel sick in the head with only a shred left of what I’d shared, alleged he’d been misled and maybe I left some things unsaid but he still pled and went ahead.

So the time has arrived for the bad guy to die, while everyone turns a blind eye, mine are dry, I won’t cry and I won’t try to pacify the high and mighty line of his mouth gone wry, saying my goodbye with a wide smile, shooting my first bull’s eye.