TW: Sexual abuse, PTSD, Trauma, Depression, Anxiety

I think I'm over it. I think it's in the past.
I shut the door behind me
but trauma creeps in closer when I'm not expecting it.
It begins pounding on the doors,
tearing at the seams,
trying to rip its way out of me.
I hear it when my brakes squeak.
I react unexpectedly, unsettled,
there’s something about that sound.
The clock turns back
and I see myself as a child
hiding in the bathroom from daddy,
forgetting that the door creaks,
forgetting to lock it behind me.
I feel it when someone reaches out to hold my hand.
My hands are the most sensitive part of my body.
I want to cut them off at the wrist.
I can't stand the feeling of being held sometimes,
even if it's only our palms touching.
When our fingers grasp tight to one another
too often I am suffocating.
Trauma leaves me fragile
so I hang a sign around my neck
that says, “Please, don't touch the glass.”
I hear it in the word relax,
always in my father’s voice.
Not when we're talking about vacations or a nap
but when someone is patronizing me,
trivializing my concerns,
my anxiety,
my intuition telling me
that something isn't right,
something needs to change,
that this is not okay.
I smell the orange peels
my student has laid out in front of him at the lunch table.
The soap my father used came in an orange bottle.
He smelled like citrus every day.
I step away.
I gather myself in the staff bathroom
but as I open the door,
I hear it creak.
Time is healing me.
God gives me more every day
and I am learning to start saying
thank you.
I don't think of my father on his birthday anymore.
Thank you.
One of the most important people in my life
was born on the same day.
Daniel would never cut me open
and demand that I stop bleeding.
Thank you.
When I hear the name Chris
I think of my cousin, I think of celebrities,
I think of one of my best friends.
He would never plant a seed of doubt in my mind
of God’s love for me
and leave me overgrown and withering.
I don't see my father’s face
at the sound of that name anymore.
Thank you.
I've started sleeping through the quiet.
I don’t need the music as often
to drown out my fears of tomorrow.
Thank you.
The silence isn't as frightening as it used to be.
The nightmares are retreating.
They have packed their belongings and are getting out of town.
Thank you.
I’ve started to reach out for my loved ones’ hands
when they are hurting.
When there’s nothing more to say
I reach out for them.
I hold them close
even if for now it’s only with my hands.
I think that says more than anything.
Thank you.
Time is helping me take control
of the damage trauma left behind in its wake.
Time is teaching me how to put a muzzle on its mouth,
restrain it, master it,
keep its teeth far away from my throat.
Time is molding it into something more comforting.
It takes the fragile sign around my neck
and turns it into one for me to hold at the airport
for when people who hurt
from the same kind of pain as I do
arrive in the valley.
It reads, “I am here for you.
You are not alone in this.
I will help you carry your luggage
but we will be leaving this place soon.”
Time is helping me to use the scars
trauma left throughout my body.
I take a picture.
I hang it in a museum.
It shows a story of survival.
It shows how much pain one can endure
and still have victory,
how you can bury someone 6 feet under anguish and shame
and watch as they claw their way out from underneath
all those layers of earth and defeat;
grow into a pine tree,
bring joy to the holidays,
keep a family warm when it is snowing
or maybe become a book of poetry.