coping mechanisms – Pix to Words

He played the game

All day
And all night

He played the game

Because when he played
He never cried

When he played
He never felt shattered

Or broken

Or alone

He played
And he played
Until he exhausted consciousness

He played

Until even the terror
Even the darkness
Deep inside him
Could no longer hold
Sleep at bay

And then he slept

Until the dreams
The nightmares
Woke him again

The images
Never survived consciousness
He never remembered the dreams
Just that a dream woke him

Leaving only the shattered terror
And the loneliness
The lovelessness

So again
He played

“You are never really gone,” she tells me
“The times you ‘go away’,” she goes on
“Are like your body, treading water
While you process all you’ve learned”

Now I watch my waitress
And I wonder if she is also processing
The traumas of a dimly remembered past
While serving another table’s drink orders

I wonder if the waitress knows
That in the every day of just going along
Her mind, and her heart, and her spirit
Process the hard work that is so upsetting

“You did not go crazy”
“You did not die”
“You lived and never let go of the light
Even when you were plunged into the darkness”

“And all you learned to cope
With the trauma so many years ago
Keeps you alive now
While you heal”

Tag: coping mechanisms

The Game

The Inner Life of Healing