I am healing at last,
slowly sleeping off the pain,
slowly ridding myself of the
psychological scars; slowly
ridding myself of the numbness
which accompanies trauma
and depression.
My pain is deep, and I’m weak,
so the movements of my mind
are cumbersome. I see folk out
of my window rushing to work,
I, too, work on my recuperation,
alone. Always alone.
Officials see me regularly, good
folk they are, but have they, I
ask myself, been to my hell? I
think not. You don’t come out
of my hell, merely learn to cope.
My healing is merely my coping,
but there is no escape. That is
why I will never get back to my
old self. But do I want to? We
have to move-on to someone
new. Bury the old. That was
then, this is now. My healing
will make me a new me. The
pain of transference, the pain
of growth, the pain of becoming
a new me.
There will be relapses, but an
unstoppable movement to a new
growth, sending out new shoots.
Nature in the raw, working
incessantly to survive: to survive
the hell I’ve inhabited all these
years. Strange being out and
about, within the strict confines
of my home, as going outside
is simply not an option.
Scared of the world, getting
out there will come in slow,
deliberate steps. I don’t want
that world, I want my own
company exclusively. That is a
measure of my condition. A lot
of healing ahead, for sure.