Defeating Trauma
TaJuan is an aspiring writer hoping to gain experience and growth through publishing passionate works, like this one, online for the world.
Underneath a bed,
In a room unfamiliar to me,
With people unfamiliar to me,
I was hiding.
I didn’t know why I was hiding.
What I was hiding from was lost to me as well,
But I knew I was hiding.
I just had this innate feeling that something was coming.
Something ugly,
Something horrible,
But unlike the room,
Or the people around me,
It was something familiar.
So, I watched the door,
Hoping for the best,
Expecting the worst.
All I could do was wait.
I waited for a long period of something.
I would say time,
But time didn’t exist in that realm.
I was trapped in my mind.
A place that could be my best friend,
Or my worst enemy,
And unfortunately for the mini me in my mind,
I was not living a dream,
As the door did not creak open,
But rather it was broken down barbarically.
The energy in the room shifted from a soft fear
To a suffocating anxiety,
As the pure embodiment of anger walked in.
The entity in question was tall,
Threatening in stature,
And he had a target:
To find his son,
And lucky for me,
This entity was unmistakable:
It was my father.
One word ran rampant in my head:
Run!
Over and over and over,
Nonstop,
With no avail,
For my legs were limp,
Frozen,
Chained down by this
Crippling fear.
It was like I was a child again
Who watched my father commit horrible actions
With eyes that drowned in tears.
I was split,
A living conflict.
Do I run?
Do I continue to hide?
The decision had to be made quickly
Because with the strength he used to abuse my mother
He lifted the bed where me and the unfamiliars were hiding.
Finally,
With unbelievable speed,
I dashed out of the room.
I was whole again.
I didn’t look back for a long time
I just ran with inhumane speed
Dodging cars and pedestrians
I ran like my life depended on it
Since, for all I knew
It did
I eventually turned back to find
That I was not the only superhuman
As he was right on my tail
But this thing
It wasn’t my father anymore
It was something indescribable
A creation of the deepest, darkest recesses of my subconscious
The moments and experiences from my past that I kept buried
My various sins and fears
But like zombies,
They had arrived in this nightmare
Chasing me at ridiculous speeds
Yet,
No matter how fast they were,
I was faster.
I was always,
Just a smidge,
Faster.
I denied the possibility of getting caught by my dead past.
I was
Beyond.
I just kept moving forward,
Towards nowhere in particular,
Just forward,
Toward a future where I shine
Brightly, vibrantly.
A future where the past is just that:
The past.
A past that may still be alive and well,
But it will never catch me.
And that is how I defeated
My trauma.
