Finding An Outlet (Poem)

I remember my first traumatic experience happening when I was eight years old. I was outside with my sisters, playing in a pile of sticks. I was the middle child at that time. I had an older sister and a younger one. I still do, but the reason for the past tense vocabulary will make sense soon.

It was September of 2010; the air was crisp in Connecticut. I remember that so vividly that I could almost feel it now. My mom and dad were just 30 feet away, having a conversation I didn’t know would later change the trajectory of my life. I distinctly remember laughing, running, and playing before the joy in my sisters and me vanished as my mother’s cries became apparent to us. She cried like I had never seen her cry before, and now it’s a memory stapled into my mind like an abandoned bulletin board.

My father gathered my sisters and me and gave us the same news that he gave my mother: he was leaving. I remember crying too. The next memory I have of that day is my older sister and my father driving away from what used to be our home. See, my older sister was not my mother’s child, so him leaving meant my sister had to go with him too. For the next ten years of my life, it was just my mother, my little sister, and me. I had stepped into one too many shoes that day. I had to fill roles that I was not prepared for. I had been changed mentally and emotionally that day.

My next traumatic experience followed shortly after. My mother, sister, and I had been evicted. We laid our heads in the trunk of a Mercedes Benz for some time. I remember trying to sleep in the parking lot of a nearby hospital before being told to leave by security. I remember parking outside my childhood best friend’s house, pride stopping my mom from asking their family to allow us to sleep inside. I remember brushing our teeth by the river outside a Planet Fitness gym.

Words had not found me then. Poetry had not found me then. I had no form of expression. I don’t think I was old enough at the time to know I needed an outlet. Many people grow up and grow old and still don’t know that they need an outlet. The day poetry found me was when I thought I had met love and then realized I had also run into heartbreak.

“People fall out of love
More often than you think,
More often than you’d like to believe.
People fall out of love
And land on their feet,
Crushing you somewhere along the way.
People fall out of love
And then don’t want to talk about it.
I guess it’s easier done than said.
People fall out of love
And make you feel like the problem,
To the point where you can’t even get out of bed.
People fall out of love,
And you can’t get out of your bed;
You can’t even get out of your head.
People fall out of love,
And you feel like you’re the one falling instead.” (2021)

I didn’t claim the words were good, but the words were there, and they were there just for me. Even if they weren’t good, they made me feel better. They made me feel heard, and they made it easier to express what I was going through. When depression decided to rent out space in my mind and then invite her friend anxiety, the words were there.

“I’m sorry, tomorrow,
Because I didn’t prepare enough today.
I’m sorry, tomorrow,
Because I left you with more work than yesterday.
I’m sorry, tomorrow,
Because I know tomorrow I’ll be sorry for the next day.” (2021)

There is no class on emotion, life, and trauma. There is no guide or crash course for dummies on how to navigate such experiences. No one tells you to find something that feels like love and to love it back. See, poetry feels like love. She has an ear. She listens, takes my words, turns them into something beautiful, and reminds me that I am too. Poetry feels like love—so much so that I have personified an art form.

Death, stress, heartbreak, anxiety, and trauma. There is too much negativity this world has to offer, and this world does not hold back. When the world, and a man, robbed me of an innocence that could not be restored, I lost the words. For eight months, I was silent. I had kept that trauma to myself, trying to convince myself that it had not happened. When I finally decided to release that pain into words, I was able to speak about it. I was able to tell my family and my friend, who just so happened to be around when it happened.

“There’s a secret I’ve been holding onto for months.
I’m the one in six women.
The only person who knows is God Himself,
And He promised me secrecy.
I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d believe me.
To be honest, I ran circles around this memory, trying to see if I even believe myself.
You were there when it happened,
Just not close enough.
I tried to call you,
But the weight of his hands on my wrists said no.
I tried to fight him,
But his body was an army I wasn’t prepared to go to war with.
I tried to scream,
But before it escaped my mouth,
I remembered who he was to you,
Who he is to you.
So my scream turned into a sigh;
My efforts turned into failure.
I relaxed the gates to my door
Even though he had already broken his way through,
And I relaxed my walls
To allow him space to come and go.
And when you returned,
My savior, who didn’t know who to save,
You asked me how it was,
And I’ve been trying to tell you ever since.
I am the one in six women.
I was rap… I still can’t even say it.” (2022)

So when the world decides to rest its heavy weight on your shoulders, where do you go? Who do you call? What art form will be there to love you in all the ways the world does not? When you find an outlet, a way to release the negativity you were never meant to hold onto, you heal parts of you you didn't know still needed healing.

“Dear Dad,

Is it possible to love you so deeply
And hate you at the same time?
To miss you and your smell
But never want to smell you again?
To wish I had all the moments with you I deserved
But want to erase you from my memory?
To be happy for you and your new life,
Your new wife,
But to wish you were happy with just me?
Wish that my love was strong enough to make you stay?
Is it possible to love you so deeply
And hate you so much—
So much it hurts to think about,
So much I hate myself,
So much I chose to never tell you?
The day you left was my first memory of pain,
And now I find comfort in men who don’t care enough to stay.
A girl’s daddy is her first love;
You, Daddy, were my first love
And then my first heartbreak.” (2021)