Tag: trauma recovery

The Hand Which Slew Me

I took the hand
which slew me
To the garden
I won’t go back
We grew there
In the courtyard
Rings of stone and
Fountain black
Watered from the orchard
Drowning floods and
Quaking earth
Bursting from the seams
Between flagstones and the truth
Ghostly hauntings from the past
Rise up flagrantly belied
We shout in riotous colors
Unheard by passersby
Fragrantly denied
We faded
From the landscape and
The lack
You can hear us
At the corners
Of the wind and
Of the sea
The hand of
The exhumed
Waving where
The garden
Used to be

I don’t like to write about trauma recovery.

I wish I didn’t have to live it either.

Auditing every brush with death, each abandonment, every betrayal, counting compromises of spirit and integrity, this gets old. Here I stand among shards and ruins, with a small brush and archeological tools trying to make sense of things that have no sense.

Trying to repair something to whole, that never was whole to begin with.

Some people say go back in time to the place before you were hurt…that is who you are, and for me that place is still in the womb.

There is no before. There is no nostalgic time of innocence where there was no nightmare, no horror, no fear.

And so I have to create from these pieces, the shards and the ruins, a place where I can experience things like safety – a truly uncomfortable place – one I had caught momentary glimpses of before each time it was dashed away in violence, or cruelty. Those who have truly faced death know there is no certainty but death itself.

All safety is ephemeral or illusory, not to be trusted.

This piece of work, of art, of memory, of oblivion, of detachment, of solidarity, of outsiderness, of other, of the sacred and the profane will be released February 29th. It is fitting that it go out into the wider world on a day that is sometimes here and sometimes not here.

We leap out of misery and into the chaos of life with a stone knife and clothes made of leaves. With twigs in our hair, and dirt on our faces we pretend to be civilized, normal, okay, fine, and it’s all good.

And it is. We have showered and dined on love and compassion. Unpacked the worst bits, and cleaned up the messes.

We rejoice, and still at times, we must visit the garden and look and listen for the parts of us that didn’t survive. We are the ones who carried on, you and me.

We have died a hundred, a thousand, a million times. We take the hand and go again to the garden but never arrive, to the impossible places where flowers might have flourished, and we grieve and celebrate, and mourn and cherish all that might have been had we been rescued, had we been good enough, had we known what it meant to have needs met in a healthy way.

We listen in the corners for secrets which remain unrevealed.

Do we wave back at the exhumed or hurry away in regret?

I see you, my ghosts, rest easy and be at peace.