C-PTSD

Wading through thick puddles of my weeping chest, I’m hot wax melting, crayola bleeding, a record that skips at the best part, iron sharpened too hard

"PTSD" by VoxKitty on Deviant Art

“You’re so strong. You’re a survivor.”

I’m the strong one

I move mountains

I’m not nervous

I’m as tough as

The crust of the Earth is

But under the surface

Blood-boiling

Pressure rising

I’m a hot head threatening to erupt

Causing cataclysmic devastation

I’m a broken cistern

That won’t stay filled

Flooding through cracks

With the force

Of my fears and insecurity

My defenses rise and fall

Rome wasn’t built in a day

But trauma quickly tore down

My carefully-constructed walls

Trauma didn’t grow me thicker skin

Slow drip death by

A thousand paper thin words

Slicing me like blades through the air

Thick as my breath

And blood dripping down my cheeks

I spent two years clinging to

Two-faced family

Broken men who broke me

And my past life

While the world shook and split apart

You would’ve had to

Pry them from my fists

And piece my stubborn bones

Back together again

Wading through thick puddles

Of my weeping chest

I’m hot wax melting

Crayola bleeding

A record that skips at the best part

Iron sharpened too hard

I have C-PTSD

It’s complex because

You would not BELIEVE

What I have lived through

I still don't

Brutal flashbacks around every turn

On every avenue

Waiting to carve me up

Every time I rest and take a breath

Survival comes with

Its own set of consequences

I survived, but not intact

Certain parts of me I’ll never get back

PTSD makes me wish sometimes

I had succumbed to death

Instead of continuing to

Stumble along

With the weight of my guilt and grief

I don’t know how much more

I can shoulder

I dream of never being called resilient

Again in my life

I’m exhausted by strength

I want support

I want softness

I want ease

Not patted on the back

For how well I take a hit

Or for how many

I have great community

But I'm not sure that will

Always be enough

In a collapsing economy

In a crumbling empire

In a brain that threatens nuclear meltdown

I hope I can produce something

Fruitful and worthwhile

From my suffering

So I don’t feel so worthless

But I don’t believe everything

Happens for a reason

What meaning can I make from

My assaults and rapes?

All the times I was hit and yelled at?

My years of abuse and bullying?

All the times I’ve been homeless

Since I was kicked out

For being queer?

The jobs I’ve been denied?

The people I’ve lost for being trans?

The bigoted family

I no longer speak to

Because we can’t even look

At each other

With love anymore?

The fucking evangelical

Doomsday cult

That moulded me from birth?

My crippling disabilities?

The aching, gaping

Void in my chest?

The black hole that crushes

Anything I try to fill it with?

What about being born

Into the “wrong” body?

How about the relentless violence

Toward my communities?

None of that has happened

For some cosmic, necessary “reason”

I’ll never know who I would’ve been

If I wasn’t forced to endure it

But I guess

Existence is resistance!

Or whatever

So I stubbornly stay alive

As a fuck you to God

I want to outlast my abusers

But I don’t wish this pain on

On my worst enemies

I just want some respite

Please, I’m pleading with you

Spirit guides

The universe

Whoever

Lately I've been feeling like

I'm kinda just done with life

I've seen too much already

If there are other lives

After this one to look forward to

(Or dread)

I'd rather skip ahead

If nothingness awaits me

I welcome my fate gladly

Give me Eden

Over this unforgiving wasteland

Any day

I've never wanted there to be

An afterlife

Even when I believed that heaven

Was my final destination

But that’s a fool’s paradise

You mean I have to live...forever?!?

No thanks, 25 years already

Feels like an eternity

I’m a prisoner to my mind

And I’m banging on the bars

Begging to get out

I don't know if I'll ever be released

Until the relief hits me

When I see the end on the horizon

"Mind Prisoner" by Melinda on Indulgy.com