Survivors Speak: Speaking to Friends & Family Through Poetry

I'm meeting a lot of survivors who are poets, which makes me wonder: Are we poets before our traumas, or does trauma - and then PTSD - bring out the poet in us?

From my own experience I know I've been a writer since I was 7 and was writing poetry before my trauma at age 13. But it was through writing poetry, 20 years later, that I began to cross the bridge back to myself.

And so, the question remains: Are we artists before fate intervenes, or does fate turn us into artists as we struggle to recreate our world?

Today, two poems by a survivor who, when I invited her to write a guest post about the connection she felt between music and healing, showed me poems that are about so much more than that - they are poems about the universal PTSD experience, and the voice of each of us who struggles to communicate from the dark.

Just stop and listen

The more you push

The further I withdraw

The more you talk

The less I listen

The more you think you are helping

The more annoyed I get

Just stop and listen

If you spent a moment in my mind

You would be terrified

The pain I suffer

I'm just trying to take a break

Feel the music

I need to spin off the planet

For a little while

I need to disappear and dance

Stand by me, I'll be okay

In the morning

I’ll go back to my hell

my invisible disease

i have this disease no one can see
i have no cane no glasses
no casts, no crutches

my hair isn’t falling out

i take meds to function
they tell me it’s a crutch
they say suck it up and deal
i wish they could understand!

i hate this illness that swallows me whole
i hate that i can’t predict the triggers
i hate that i can’t stop the panic attacks
i feel like i'm working so hard and getting

no where

i'm a let down a failure
i wish i could just get over it and move on

i can’t find that magic wand

'Survivors Speak' is a weekly feature written by or interviewing a survivor and PTSD experiencer about some positive aspect of healing. If you would like to participate in the series (anonymously if you prefer), please email thoughts, ideas, and topic suggestions to Michele: parasitesof.themind @ yahoo.com.

(Photo: My favorite Gulf War Vet who wishes to remain anonymous.)