Everything You Ever Wanted

When it comes time to react, I wonder if I'll ever be able to beat my trauma. It has the upper hand. Sometimes it has all the hands, and then there's no way for me to untangle myself from it. I'm just in it; in it and spinning out of control. I need a thought to move forward, but it has all my thoughts.

Calm down, I say to the unanswered text. Calm down. In response, it thrashes and clings tighter, grabs a vein of shame and twists hard. Breathe, I say to it, to me. Breathe. I breathe. Breathe more. It's hard to breathe because I'm burning. I'm burning all up and all over. Eventually I give up breathing and give all my energy to burning.

I don't even remember the trauma showing up. A stupid remark to a coworker. An awkward night with a friend I'm also in love with. A phone number from that cute guy. They are silly life things, simple life things, or even difficult life things, but they are only life things, so I don't notice what the trauma has been inventing and expecting and seen coming for a long time. By the time I react, by the time I realize I've already reacted, the trauma is tearing down the walls of reality and pasting up its fears, replaying its pain and muttering to itself, unable to hear me, crafting its masterpiece over and over. A savant of self-hatred, of disappointments, of loss, how can I beat it? It burns everything it touches, and I can't tell what's real through the rippling waves of heat, and what's a mirage.

Think, I say to the flames. Stop and think. My mind is so much ash and I cannot sift it. There's a klaxon wailing to signal the time is at hand. The trauma has my hands, my breath, my mind, and leaves me only with my eyes to see.

There is nothing wrong. I find the edge of my burning world and look. On the other side of a frosted glass, untouched by fire, I see it. That there is a tomorrow. That there is no judgment. That there is nothing to fear. There is just the world. It doesn't have to hurt. On the other side of the glass. Everything I ever wanted. But I can only burn.