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#TWFT52 Prompt 25: The Word for This is "PAIN"

They didn’t trust me

then (again

my skin, my voice, I screamed)

so why would I dream

they’d trust me now

(nerve endings charred,

fires started long before,

blistered from the burn);

I begged them

then, again and how,

all is I want is to

put me out.


Did you think of physical or emotional pain?

Do we reward those who hide or tolerate pain?

Do we punish those who feel and express their pain?


Fuck. This is a word I didn’t want today. Among the piles of medical paperwork is a referral for a practitioner with expertise in somatic experiencing methodologies: addressing (and presumably, releasing) the countless ways the body holds trauma.


Then:

His hands and mouth, grabbing at me, the skin of my cheeks and neck, my buttocks (parts easily accessible, others ostensibly protected by the fleshier places, and surely this construction of a body isn’t an accident?). His words, repulsive, a sick blend of lust and contempt. My words, yelling, out loud, to Him, to others: No. I don’t like this. Stop it. Stop this. Please. And their response, arguments in the alternative, (a) I was too sensitive and there was nothing wrong, nothing wrong with any of it, or (b) it’s wrong, we’ll grant you that bit, but it’s Him… and He has the right, so I had to *make* it right.


Now:

Physical pain, in every form. Circuits tripped even when my mind is still, nothing to see here but my CNS never got the memo. Systems dysregulated, hyperalert when they should be at rest, primary functions failing when baseline function is all I need. No part of me unaffected, and yet, nothing to see here. There’s nothing wrong – but if there is, the only answers “just _____,” “have you tried,” the infantilizing implication that the failure is my own, and all the while, the ongoing trauma of being in pain in the first place, the new normal.


When does the world stop blaming us? I want to know. I really, really want to know.


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