7:59am. Did I Tell You He’s Kept Every Single One Of My Love Letters In His Wallet?

“but what if i’m faking it?”

traumatic memories, especially traumatic memories from when you were a child, are notoriously difficult to access in their entirety. there are a lot of reasons for this- dissociation, injury, and memory deteriorating over time to name a few- and this can present a challenging question to survivors: how do i know i’m not lying?

people who are faking trauma or mental illness in general know they’re faking it. if you didn’t wake up one day and plan out what a fake traumatic memory you were going to have, and all the triggers you wanted to have, then you’re not faking. 

processing trauma memories is difficult and frightening and confusing, but you are not a liar or a faker.

coffee, the sunrise and the buildings awash in the light of a new morning all around me. how lovely is it to be alive. to experience all this busyness and splendour. how the clouds whisper good morning and the heavens themselves shine through each crack in the sky. how the sun calls my body to wake. how the birds tell me today is a new day and aren’t there just endless possibilities. the promise of a new sunrise makes me so glad I’m still alive.

lavender kisses, sunshine eyes and tight hugs. heaven takes the shape of a boy with blonde hair, long legs and clumsy words. he’s got a smile as soft as his heart. smells like cinnamon and sugar. he’s so sweet in and out and i can’t think about him and not smile, can’t write about him without blushing. his name next to mine still makes my heart skip a beat.

hey lovely i hope you’re doing okay!!!! i see you and your words and i want you to know you’re worth the world

hi, that means the absolute world to me angel. I’m struggling with my physical and mental health right now and it’s making me feel useless because I can’t function. hopefully it passes soon though, it always does :)

thank you for checking in honey

When Alexa Demie said “You think a girl like me gon be single for long? You wrong. You think a girl like me gon be trippin for long? Dead wrong. You think a girl like me, fuckin girl like me, goddess like me, gon be tripping? You’ll see, with a girl like me.” I felt that.

You seem like the type that would happen anyway.

I smile politely and listen to him as he went on about how sexy he thought my vulnerability was.

My trauma a commodity, a mere accessory to him.

I am the saint in the stained glass window now.

I wonder if I’m the type when he kept his hands where they were even when I asked him to stop. 

The way he mistook my shrinking for permission.

My fingertips were so thin then, 

Pale, peeling skin and a wrecking ball in the empty space in my chest.

I wonder if I’m the type when a man I don’t know follows me home,

The way I tried to swallow the problem, to drop my throat into a whisper. 

To survive by blending, by not being the victim, 

Maybe I had always asked for it. 

Maybe this just happened to girls like me.

Kim Addonizio, from ‘Blues for Roberto’, What Is This Thing Called Love: Poems