Trauma

My mind splintered

apart

Into shards of harm

frozen in

the innocence

of

amnesia

My mind lied

but my body knew

Bones harbored the

harm, taut

muscles tight

Don’t let the secrets

out

How I tried to

keep them down

My tongue

made dumb

by the

terror

Every now and

then

A crack would appear

An image skittered

Across my inner eye

A distant scream

played on my

inner ear

An inner scream

only I could hear

Half-dead

Half-alive

dreams from my youth

died that night

wishes that could

never come true

try as I might

No love

no children born from

the wreckage of that womb

the body couldn’t carry

the secrets of what it knew

Unable to see what

I saw

Unable to know what

I knew

And in the process

being told how I should heal

the acceptable way to feel

by well-meaning idiots

Look on the bright side

You survived

My body littered

with scars

Under a bright light

seeing myself

for the first

time

I woke up

thirty years

too late

Fighting my way

back to who I was

as the memories

come

Getting her back

with each new part

Rescuing her dreams

from my youth

Her right to

be seen

Her right

to scream

at the

top of her

lungs.