Trauma Is A Stalker – Mary Lambert

What if I told you trauma was 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 am 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 is 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