“How are you feeling?”
A ‘check-in’, one word.
Name an emotion you might have heard?
Say something, say anything
Anything at all.
Just try, and try harder, to break down that wall.

I can’t name it, can’t touch it, can’t hear it or see.
It’s everywhere
Yet nowhere
Full and empty.

I yearn to scream and to cry,
Not just inside.
But I can’t let it out,
I’m too terrified.

Of what I don’t know?
It’s part of the fear.

I’ll explode and I’ll shatter with nobody near
To hold me together,
To rock me to sleep,
To comfort and love me,
The hate is too deep.

Connecting.
Relaxing.
Reminded to breathe.
Trying to speak and breakthrough the freeze.

Forcing the words to leave my mouth,
Sticking and stumbling, I can’t get them out.
I’m a child again, fingers down my throat.
Induce the choking, get this poison out.

Then I hear their stories - women like me.
Stronger, but struggling, trying to break free.

Trying to open their broken wings
To rise up above all of the things
That trap us, that hold us, that ruin our lives.
That stole our childhoods, our voices, our time.

Our time will come,
Until then we’re one.

Sitting still in noisy silence
Windows open, letting in life.
Attempting to be in the moment,
Clock ticking ‘til I see my wife.

Needing to be held.
Needing to be touched.
Needing to hear that I’m worth so much.
Needing to know this is not all in vain,
To believe I have strength to live through the pain.

Just know that I tried.
Tried to face what’s inside.

I tried to be strong
I tried to breathe
But these crashing waves are overwhelming me.

I can’t stand feeling this way, despite what I try.
I just need some peace.
Please let me die.

Can I sit with this pain, if only for a moment?
Can I resist the force pulling me down?
Can I keep the lid on this pressure that’s building?
If released, I fear I will drown.

But I sat and I heard - their pain and their struggles.
The hope and the hopeless entwined.
And I did speak, in the last few minutes.
A few words were uttered aloud.

I can’t do it though can I?
Let it out and be heard.
I’ll drip feed and sob, but can’t find the words.

Don’t know what to call these emotions I feel?
So how in hell am I going to heal?

One night over, induced into sleep.
Today will be harder, I will have to speak.
To smile and be friendly,
To cry and be raw.
To show ugly scars that I want to ignore.

I feel the pain rise,
I tremble and shake.
Is this fear?
Maybe it’s fear I will break?

I constantly feel so deserving of pain,
so ******* worthless,
My guilt and my shame.
Me I should hate.
Me that should die.
Tortured no longer for not knowing why.

I opened my mouth and let the silence break.
Words of glass, a silent chime,
A voice I didn’t know was mine.

I told them the truth, or pieces of it.
The parts I could hold without falling apart.
They didn’t turn away,
No judgement.
No shame.
Just hearts open and still.

They held what I gave
And just…stayed.

I don’t yet know what healing means.
I hope that it’s soft,
Will it be slow?
Is it even meant for me?

But something moved.
Not the pain.
Not yet.
Just the knowing I don’t have to hold it alone.

Feeling sick, feeling frightened, feeling out of control.
Fear letting that parasite out of the hole,
Where it’s bored and it’s buried, and ripped through its host.
Where it hides in the shame, haunting me like a ghost.

It’s all over, shouldn’t matter, was so long ago.
I’m lucky, compared to others, I know.

But I still feel it’s there, infecting my mind,
A slow death of shame, making me blind.

If I open the scars, will I ever repair?
If it all spills out, will anyone care?
Or reject my pathetic, say I shouldn’t be there?
**** it up and move on *****, life isn’t fair.