The following four poems are some of what I have recently come to think of as my “me too” poems. They come out of the lifetime effects of early abuse, effects that are much like PTSD, that are emotional and physical, and persist long after you think you have put all such things to rest. With so many now breaking their silence, I have felt the effects as two-fold- release and relief, the recognition that you are not alone, and there may be a path toward change, but also the triggering of what I think of as visceral memories—not  simple recollection, but an actual re-living of the trauma, felt in both the body and the mind.  The most persistent warning given to my sisters and me was "don't tell" -- usually followed by implied or explicit threats. And far too often, coming to the point where we had to tell, we found only disbelief, and blame cast back at us. Perhaps this is a moment of cultural change. I hope so.

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On Reflection


After a lifetime
Your story broke too close
Blowing my foundation
Opening the earth
Calling up the dead
To walk again
Dragging their sins back
Into the open air
Until each necessary breath
Invites corruption
And I taste your secret
Like some foul communion
I must swallow whole
Or choke


It will be as hard to forgive you
As to rebuild these walls
And drive the dead back down
Too hard to forget your voice
Telling my story
As if it were your own





Consequences


Of course I remember
All of it
I could not erase myself
Back to innocence

So redefined
Not in a list of dates and times
But in the memories of flesh
Smell and taste and touch
Set hard
In the chemical alphabet
Of nerve and synapse
The unspoken words
A silent testament
I carry

An anchor
An albatross
An iron shackle
That puts a hitch
In every step I take




Again


The sirens go off
And it is all happening
Now
The years have left no
Softening dust
To smudge the sharp
Scene resurrected
In punishing detail
Time has no mercy
Not one touch
Forgotten
One word lost
No rescue no
Forgiveness
My voice crushed
To a stutter
No one will hear
My loud heart
Trying to beat its way
Out of my chest
Anything to get away
From the rough arms
That prison me
Again




Survivor


No one had to tell me
Your secret
I saw its shadow
On your face
How it pushed you
Into desperate corners
How your life broke on it
Like a body falling
From a cliff
Onto the rocks far below
How nothing else could explain
Why you had to try so hard
To die
Stopping the liar
To stop the lie
I saw my face
In your mirror
Found my prints
On your fingers
And your dreams
Under my pillow
I know what you didn’t tell
It came from the same place I did
The same rough clutch
We’ve tried never
To remember
Still there for anyone
With eyes to see