So unfamiliar with this feeling –

It’s got no name, no colour, no sound,

But it’s under my skin;

Creeping, scratching, gnawing around.

I see the way their entitlement lifts them,

To do what they want with disregard,

The paralysis of the trigger they’ve hit

Without any intent, I’m completely disarmed;

I can’t move to protest,

I can’t speak to alarm.

Without any contact,

Their behaviour causes harm.

I think that it’s anger;

This scratching that gnaws –

At; myself, my past,

At; the trigger and the cause.

At; how dare they do what they please,

With our stuff, with our presence, even with our bodies.

At; how easy it is for them to parade, un challenged,

As the people who fear them are looped in their damage.

At; them assuming control and laughing in its wake,

And all I can do is sit, my mind racing as I shake.

I can see what might happen,

Which is shaped by my past –

My ghost is gone, yet omnipresent –

How long will this last?

My words have no power,

My voice has no weight,

Thinking I had a handle on this,

Was a fundamental mistake.

But above all I’m lost;

In the fact I can’t feel –

Yet this nameless, colourless, soundlessness…

Is overwhelmingly real.

Free writing Poetry Scribbles Depression Past Poem Survival Trauma