V.C. Myers: Trauma Is a Muscle Memory

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

Greenhouse, glasshouse, it's all the same & broken

               Pronounce the moon an aperture,   I'll wait.

The sound of bells   and locusts   emerging from

the ground.   I know you want me  raw,   spread out

on the page,   but I've already been eaten by

everyone I encountered today.  Every person I meet

says smile more,   but I've learned   smiling

is seen   as an invitation.   I prefer to be

a closed door   and locked.

               People keep trying to kill me

with their unvaccinated children   & backyard

chickens,   their denial  of climate change &

affordable healthcare.   A chronic, toxic bloom  

of flowers   emerging  from

my body,   buds bursting   from

my mouth,   ivy curling   from

my ears, my skin cracked glass, the sky ceiling

of a hothouse, my blood boiling from

mysterious fevers   misdiagnosed

for years by white coat indifference.

Doctors simply shrug, reaching for-

ward,   ripping   the petals from

my pores,   dismissing me,   insisting

               it was all in my head.

So go on, keep asking.  I'll keep drinking

and pretending   that my father is alive

and never hit my mother;   that I was loved

and wanted and never homeless;  that every friend

I've ever had was never beaten or raped; that I am

light and thin and pretty and have never seriously

considered suicide   multiple times   since I was

a little girl   watching   my father   hit my mother.

I don't mind aging, because   I'm still running

from my past.   I started drinking   to forget

he was alive.   I kept drinking   to forget

he was dead.   I stopped drinking   to let

the memories do  what they must.

Everyone promises time will heal my wounds, but 

gaslight   is not antiseptic.   They all want a bandaid

over what I need  to fester.

               Trauma   is a muscle   memory,  

my body   longs   to forget.

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V.C. Myers is the author of Give the Bard a Tetanus Shot (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019). Her work has been featured in exhibits and journals worldwide, including the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Museum & Library, the FRANK Gallery, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, The Minnesota Review, Five:2:One, Queen Mob's Teahouse, and Entropy. She has lived in Ireland, England, and West Virginia. Her website is vcmyers.com.