Unhinged Healing - Raw Poetry For The Abused

The book that was never meant to be.

In a moment of discontentment and boredom, I began to gather my poetry that was scattered across writing platforms, old journals, and forgotten documents on my Google Drive to bring some sort of organization to my writing portfolio. I realized I had a lot more poems than I thought I did. It was a joke at first. I said to my family, "Man. I didn't realize I had this many poems written. I could make a book of them." When my husband suggested actually making a poetry book to add to my portfolio with them, I almost automatically responded with: "Because I am no Poe or Emily Dickinson. No one wants to read my trash poems."

"Excuse me? Don't you dare talk about my wife's poetry like that. Her poetry is wonderful." He always reverts to talking like I'm not me, like I'm somebody else when I put myself down. It's been a very helpful manipulation technique to help me retrain my vocabulary into a more loving, positive dialogue about myself.

And the idea stuck and took root. Here on Vocal and on Medium, I have had plenty of people praise my poetry. Some of my poetry has struck chords with other abuse survivors. I quietly thought about the suggestion and concluded in a quiet moment to myself that my poetry doesn't have to be the work of a master poet to mean something.

So I poured through my poetry with intention.

And looking through my poetry actually gave me a huge sense of accomplishment. Not because of the volume of poems I had, but because as I reread them and approached these old poems from a new mind, I could see exactly and remember where I was in life when I wrote them. The raw pain, the darkness, despair, and lack of hope. It filled my older poetry with the grim and morose that maybe even Poe might have appreciated. But as I got to the newer poetry, I realized something.

As my life continues to improve, my poetry has gradually become lighter, more loving, and less raw. It focuses more on my spirituality and the offense I take to others using my Faith as a scapegoat for their unadulterated hate, my family, and the way the emotional scars sometimes just tingle now.

A lot of my poetry has a theme of healing, growing, surviving, perservering through the darkness, and continuing to look for hope. As I read my poetry, I could see the healing in my own words. There were fewer poems about the pain, the hurt, the fracturing, and more poems about my family, my children, about the healing, and about my faith.

So I thought, wow. If I can look back at my own writing, and I can see how damaged I was, and how much better I sound now through poetry, surely other people could resonate.

I'm certainly not the only person who has suffered at the hands of others. And I'm not the only one who is healing from it.

So I thought, to hell with it? Why not? My poetry may not be masterpieces like the epics and ballads of Homer or Shakesphere. But I am a writer. And I write about the perseverance of the spirit and the heart. My stories of fiction and anecdote, my poetry, even most of my articles. Through the darkness and despair, I never let go of hope.

Hope is not a condition of the world. But one of the soul. I have not yet seen anything that has fallen so far, that it is beyond the point of recall. One life ends, but the world calls us back to a new life, a new face, time, and time again. Do not lose hope. - Dame Morgain, Hound Knight of the King of Timmony.

It feels as if the poetry in this book is from a whole different world and life, not the one I am living now. And that's beautiful. I wouldn't want to go back to the world where I am writing poetry just to help me survive the crushing feelings.

But I know that at all times, other people are falling into the despair that I crawled out of. Or they are trying to claw and clamor their way out of it.

And I hope that above all else, the people who need my poems find them. My poetry book has excerpts on my own healing journey, words of encouragement, and with raw poetry that talks about sexual assault, abuse, substance abuse, and despair, as well as the poems that helped me heal.

So, I release my pain into this world. From my void to yours. And I hope that my pain can set the course for someone else's healing.

Because I clawed my way out of that pit, and from where I sit, things are so much better than I thought they could ever be.

I am not rich. I still have scars on my heart and soul. I am not successful. But I am alive. I am happier. I am healthier. I am loved. And my world feels pretty complete, despite the lack of accolades to my name.

Putting together this poetry book made me realize something so profound that I'm not sure how I had missed it.

I am very healed. I guess it was such a gradual thing, I didn't realize it until I looked back and realized that the broken woman I expected to be staring back at me was gone. She had taken the form of me today, scarred but proud. Strong and tall. Mighty and full of burning love for everyone and anything. But smarter. Wiser and more understanding. Less naive and much less afraid of the world. And for a moment, just for a moment, for the first time, I thought of myself as beautiful.

So now that I am here, I only look back to remind myself how far I've come.

And I look back to remind myself, so that I can reach out and connect to others who may need to know that this pain CAN be healed. So long as we choose it.

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