Trauma Is a Stalker - Mary Lambert

What if I told you trauma is 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’m 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 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