You've Got This

“Sit back and let the shit show unfold

Except, this time I think I’m the main act

Maybe I always have been”

Is the beginning of a poem I never finished

Because although it felt right in the moment

Didn’t hit viscerally as my truth

Truth is weird like that

In 2010 I’d step into high-school for the first time ready to reunite with friends

And instead, soon find myself completely isolated

My world became so small, writing shitty poetry was my only escape

A new passion, tainted with trauma

I still have every poem I’ve ever written since 16

But I can’t bear to look through them again

That sick and sad child- yes child- I was under the age of 18, don’t argue with me- seems to be from another lifetime

Sometimes that’s just how I cope with the facts

By far the most difficult time of my life was when the abuse was taking place from both of them

The year 2021 takes a close second

It was then that I decided it was time to live in my truth

My mother would show her true self to me and I would gain my freedom

Freedom is funny though, it doesn’t dismiss the past, or at least it shouldn’t, so here I sit with a document

Times New Roman 12 Pt. font, single spaced

Chronological order

4 and a half pages of everything he did to me

Depending on the second, when you ask me who my abuser was, I might not answer the same

My dad, no, my mother

My step father, I mean high-school counselor

All had a role, so who’s to blame, I just know it’s not me

“Losing Her Saved Me” - An essay I wrote to be published to the world

But she’s not the only thing I lost; my mom is not the only thing I lost that saved me

But I think the show is over now

And maybe that means I can start to let go