Do you want the courage to see yourself as deserving of healthy, healing relationships? Relationships that help you debride your wounds, not create new ones?
Then keep reading...
Poetry found me at 13 as I coped alone after being sexually abused. The power of poetry kept me alive and helped me find my voice and not hide in the shame of violation.
With poetry, I wasn't alone. Sharing my experiences brought connections I would never have known as girls and women came up to me after open mics with the same heartbreaking stories of abuse.
You're not alone in your heartbreak or trauma either.
Poetry became this coat of arms, fortifying and protective, still allowing others in and me out. It protected me from myself. Poetry was therapy before I had a therapist. As a springboard, I untangled my emotions and beliefs with the nimble fingers of its rhythm and extended metaphors. This wasn't a flawless process, in any case. Trauma craftily preys on wounds that don't quite come clean in the wash of the years.
"Poetry, and the creative introspection it fosters, can help individuals feel more connected to themselves, to those around them, and the external world as a whole. Even when practiced in isolation...poetry can increase self and interpersonal awareness, encourage the ownership of voicing your own ideas and emotions, and increase one's ability to reflect upon significant memories or current-day situations. This can... be a powerful step in helping individuals combat loneliness."
-David Haosen Xiang & Alisha Moon Yi, Harvard Medical School
In my community, abuse was kept secret; this may be true for you too.
Those secrets feasted on the open wounds that would drive me into abusive relationships as a teenager and adult, taking less than I was worth and often giving the messy parts of me in response. I was sometimes as harmful as those who harmed me. Therapy and poetry would eventually lead me to safer shores despite the cyclical nature of trauma--leaving would still be a conscious choice.
Abusive relationships have a way of making debris of your self-esteem and building oceans of depression in your hope. The only chance you have is deciding you are worth more and knowing that breaking the cycle starts with you.
I got exhausted. Are you?
Goodbye is good, and some goodbyes need to be for good so we can be good, finally. Maybe you want to show a loved one that leaving is possible. This is encouragement for those who struggle to leave. Perhaps you want to understand why they stay. You will unearth deeper empathy.