“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”