I am not gushing out the blood of my abuse.
The compound fractures of my childhood
aligned,
metal-rodded
and sewn up almost seamlessly.
The scars of bone and skin now so faint and thin,
even I forget they are there,
except sometimes,
when I am waiting at the red light on sunny days,
hands on 10 and 2
absently staring at the tattooed sleeve of my left forearm,
shading but not entirely hiding the even lines I cut
back then
when a razor was the only howl I had
to drip the red tears my eyes
were unsafe to yield.
I am not gushing out the blood of my 6-year-old.
She’s safe, here,
with me now.
Along with the 7-year-old, the infant, the zygote and fetus
the all my little ones
playing safely in the lake on the beach.
or sleeping softly in comforted beds or on padded moss carpets.
I am not gushing out the blood from decades long gone.
Instead,
it is leaking out in a multitude of tiny smeared drops.
The microfissures of microbetrayals, bleed into the micro
abrasions of microaggressions.
Once my heart was strong as steel,
it is ironless now.
I need the healing sting of
a salt bath of meditation
for a
good
long
while.
I need a cauterization of silence and solitude.
This white-knuckled heart needs nothing more than to
Sleep
on padded moss carpets with the
reclaimed innocence of children.
© Sabrina Santa Clara, 2021
From where I stand now
Pain doesn’t leave a life, any more than happiness does. But it can dramatically change shape. There were years when mine had a single door — when, in the worst hours, ending it felt like the only way the ache would ever stop. It was the only hope to a part that felt entirely hopeless.
I haven’t lived in that territory in decades. Now, when the ordinary friction of an ordinary life — the small betrayals — and the bigger ones too, the thousand little abrasions — when they start to wear me thin and tip the balance, I don’t reach for that old illusionary exit. I have resources now. I can feel depletion before it hardens into despair. And what I reach for is rest.
I lie down with the parts of me that none of it ever touched — the ones who still hold my innocence, the me that exists apart from the trauma. I let them be safe. I let myself be tired without it meaning something is ending. Because rest, it turns out, isn’t weakness and it isn’t a luxury. It’s a resource. Some days it’s the whole of the work.
That’s what healing looks like most of the time — not a finish line, just a wider set of doors, and the bone-deep knowing that the ache can be met with tenderness now, and that morning comes.