This is a deeply personal poem. I don't think I'll ever finish it because the interpersonal work it reflects will take a whole lifetime to work through. Those of us on a healing journey through CPTSD may figure out along the way that it takes time to learn how to unlearn the byproducts of abandonment, neglect, and abuse. This undertaking is deeply personal and unique to the situations we've survived. So far, the most impactful aspect of healing for me has been learning not to abandon myself. Realizing that I've been acting out my inner life where the central message of abandonment lives. That message being unworthiness and has morphed itself into self abuse, self contempt, self blame, self criticism and self doubt. These have been the dark lenses through which I have viewed and lived my life. As I continue the work that healing requires I am encouraged by the moments I have chosen to stay yoked to my true nature; loving, accepting and encouraging myself. These sprouting moments will grow deep roots and will eventually become a more natural way to live.
*****
Let her Speak
By: Stacey Gensler
There’s a girl on the porch on Cottonwood street
Invisible to those nearby
She’s come outside where rabbits graze and things that live are growing
Inside her room with bed and dresser are dead and splintered parts
With outstretched arms she wants to speak with songs like the wild birds sing
Unburdened, unfrozen, unraveled from the belly and free
Inhaling, her chin toward the sun, she calls forth the caw of the black crow
And spills out the secret that was never hers to carry
This child speaks of the dark burden
Born from loss
Tethered to the secret sins of ancestors
Whose flesh she’s never touched
Their cells, Their DNA,
Ancient binding shadows that carried her life into birth.
Of play
she cannot speak, only the absence of innocence
Lost among the tall green grasses with butterfly and pony
Carried away with the freshness of Lilac and Lilly
II
In the woods
following the slow-sloped winding trail
along train tracks with slow moving rusty boxes
marked with city art
she walked
and tried not to think
she looked for herself past thundering, threatening, bare-black oaks
with needle sharp limbs and knots felt deep in the gut
downward, fixed gaze her strides
led to the edge of the cat tail swamp, inhaling the stench of decay and sunless earth
her feet sink into fear and fate
the cattails frozen by mud and stagnate wind
their movement abandoned
under the weight of grief
She walked around corners
where ticks steal
while wild deer graze in tall dry grasses
their innocent bodies no longer their own
then, past the empty soybean field once bursting with tenderness
holding its residue
a by gone crop
its season yielded
barren by the heat of neglect
Above the deep worm burrows
rests soil ripe with longing to be fertile
Listening deeply, she hears the call of surrender
To be turned over and over again
To endure the blades excavation
Preparation for the new seasons harvest
III
Follow the scent of innocence deep into the landscape of budding trees
where violet blooms hang heavy
left in solitary stillness to reach their full potential
Announce your presence tenderly the way the wind approaches the sleeping sea.
Or be silent
And watch at the shoreline as I wade into unknown waters
and stare at the disfigured reflection
left by your absence.
Feel the burn of your squinting eyes
straining to focus through the mist of sea spray
tethered to the tears of 1,000 different disappointments
Watch with shame as I dive through the dark abyss
to rescue what you’ve left behind
lifeless
damaged
unrecognizable
forgotten
and irrelevant
Turn
Turn away
Leave me to gather myself from the depths of this ocean
#CPTSD #Poetry #TraumaRecovery #PTSD
*photo credit, Gaëtan Werp
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