Trauma Is a Stalker

What if I told you trauma is a stalker?
Follows me room to room
Visits me at work
Leaves dead animals on my day planner
Texts me knives
Licks my memory before I have a chance to get it right
I’m digging myself into the carpet
Learning how to make wool imprints on my kneecaps
This is how I learned to dance
With half of my body on fire
There is not enough whiskey in the world
To make any of this bearable
But I have been screaming in the basement of my trauma
Trying to find a window
A light, a string, a sound
Something that doesn’t read «helpless,»
Something that doesn’t read «sad girl crying all the time,»
A wreck in a shower
A wet mess huddled in a bed
Don’t look at me like that
Like I can do better
Like this sadness is a well that I jumped into on purpose
Nothing is on purpose
My mania is so stupid and marvelous
It sits in a glass jar
Teetering on the kitchen counter
I am always one slipped rug away from losing everything