I wrote this poem in February of 2023.

If only I could bypass the trauma lived and experienced
my life would be a lot easier
Perhaps I’d be fulfilled and not on this neverending heroine journey
to acknowledge how trauma happened to me
to understand how it changed me
to tells the stories from it so I can begin to heal from it
to do all of the work so I don’t pass it on to my sons
and their children
because this legacy of intergenerational silence with violence
needs to stop with me
even if it’s sometimes a painful nightmare to deal with