Release: a poem
A poem written in response to Jeannine Ouellette’s prompt on touch. This was a strange experience for me given my history of sexual abuse but when I let trust in, it became so much more, so much deeper. I’ll write about it some day but for now, here is this poem-ish thing.
—
RELEASE
A rag doll, suspended
Held by his six-foot frame
Lifeless, speechless, in pain
His large bony hands excavating
My diaphragm
A knot that feels like stone
Aged. Fossilized anguish.
Rejection. Hurt. Abandonment.
“There, there,” he says as
The vitriolic memories surface
Sinewing through the ankles, my armpits
Stretched to its seams
My skull bursting
A white light
My mom, a red rotary phone
A cheating boyfriend
Three decades of silence
A deafening rage
Hidden in muscle spasms
Sobs, gasps, a tightness
In my chest that is
Perpetual. Unforgiving. Seething.
Scars left by time
Like shackles around my
Heart.
He pulls and he pushes.
Pushes. Pushes ever so hard
Pressure. Intense tearless cries.
The cold of the massage table on my spine
His warm, even, breath by my ear
Not sensual or sexual
Just sacred
Chanting, touching, gliding
And I, unable to express
The weight being lifted
He massages the darkness
Out of me
My childhood wounds
Reopened
He kneels
"The rest is up to you"
The healing has begun.
