Trauma takes.
What a loving relationship should be
now shattered by repeated stress,
trigger pressed and jammed into position
by what memories I don’t even know.
Realization comes slow when reactive is all I’ve ever
had time or capacity to be.
Be! What a concept when all the world wants me dead,
the dead want my world,
and yet I’ve had no chance to grieve.

Death and other worldly matters consume my mindbody
each night I lay eyes squeezed tight to pray for a chance of rest.
I thought my only skill was digging graves.
I thought digging graves was love.
I thought if I let myself feel pain, I’d soon be lying in a grave
of my own making,
mourners hovering cameras flashing and my bodymind
filling with hungry vermin.
It seemed just as I’d imagined, death inevitable;
and so fear consumed me as I dug.

Just like this, the living dying live and die.
With each body I bury, I submerge a part of my soul.
I expect the ghosts before they arrive.
I see to it that they feel seen, and the deeper I look
the more I, too, start to disappear.
To still be living is a curse I cannot escape
until I put down my shovel
and try to remember if ever there existed
something prior to pain;
I want to remember a love that is still breathing.