How Much of Me

by JeremySpokeIn

Summary:

A poem I wrote when thinking about my trauma and how that has shaped who I am

Notes:

It’s not much, but I wrote it and I like it

I don’t know how much of me

Is made of her

 

My pains are easily traced back

My jaw cracks from a legacy of smothered screams

Her weight on my ribs caves in my chest

My hips ache from being held open

 

But what of my joys

Did I climb trees just so she could watch from below

Run through sprinklers for her fantasies

Sing to distract from my fear

Read to escape the memories

 

Am I a man because she made girlhood torture

 

There’s is no before

Only during and after

No way to prove I was anything without her touch

 

So who does that make me?

Notes:

A friend of my parents abused me between the ages of 3 months and 14 years old and I started accessing the repressed memories at the age of 22. I’m 25 now and it still hits me hard a lot of the time. Just wanted to put this out into the world, even if no one reads it