Trauma

I suppose when I was younger I fancied trauma as a dramatic device. I could proclaim of the changes in weather, the loss of a phone, the subtle betrayal of a barely registered lover to be causes of trauma. Devastating. Unbearable. How little I knew. My new trauma does not flash across my life with a fleeting vengeance, it sits with me always. No stranger to the everyday martyrdom of depression I almost didn't notice my sidekick at first. He fed so delicately that I almost laughed him to death, let him bide his time and drain his strength from the parts of me no cleansing liquor could reach. But there he was still, snuggled somewhere between my broken heart and my barely breathing lungs lived a monster without whom I could never survive. Trauma is not fear. It is not sadness nor anger, trauma is a myth all of its own and with this monster inside me I found I could not stay myself. I grew to accommodate his increasing size, his obnoxious habits and his scathing mannerisms. I grew around him like I was the cancer of his oak, I began to mutate into shapes I never thought possible. The woman who dragged this beast behind her would have been unrecognisable to the girl whose chest the monster made home. You see unlike pain the creature didn't let up. He stayed and fed and eventually became the thing that drove me forward, became my reason for being far beyond keeping my blood pumping. The monster was the reason for my thirst for revenge - he was just a mimicking puppet of a crueler beast but I longed for his blood all the same. Longed for a closure I could never reach as it did not really exist. Just like with the walls that divided nations, the chasms that maim each gorge - even when he passes, if that blissful morning shall ever arise, I'll never truly be rid of him. My trauma is me now.

If I stare hard enough into my pupils I catch glimpses of him cackling away. So codependent. My breath rattles along with his and I feel the shadows of his fingers extend through my nerves as he forces me towards more debauchery. He beckons so softly, with every silky motion he's a nightmarish ballet. We are reaching the closing act and I can't find him as easily these days. Even when I chase him through the bleak sister of my iris it's not enough. We have to meet properly. Soon to dive through acrid waters, I will splash next to him as the final threads of my body decline. 'Wanna play?' he'll sing. And I won't answer, but we'll both know it's my time.