When I was at the conference, I heard this beautiful spoken word artists named Nafessa Monroe. Oh... How I wish I could and was willing to share my writing out loud...

her work inspired me to attempt a spoken word style poem.. i have it in my head...the way the lines are to be read but that I cannot share here... however I wanted to still write out what I have written and see what you all think of it....

March 16, 2008- spoken word inspired 1st poem

I try to imagine myself
Feeling trauma free

Awake and free
Alive without despair
Hope in all of my dreams

My memory is forever tainted
The people that burned their way into the depths of my soul FOrEver leaving their mark as an unuttered cat leaves it's undetectable stench ALL Over the place!!

The police did fail me
Mental health care too
Mom did her best
And God, well .. I just knew I needed to pray to him and have faith in him and keep serving him and that one day… maybe one day… somehow things would be easier to manage…

Savage nightmares took hold of my mind
Taking over me
My minds eye saw terror and fear, I balled up waiting to die feeling overwhelming fear
Yet somehow in the darkest hour, a woman came to my aide and thus saved my life? Yet Im not ever so sure if Im very grateful for this tender act of kindness…

Memory like the holes in swiss chese… nothing to fill in the gaps… where did I exist? I'm not so sure. I got through each day and watch night with painstaking difficulty yet I remember so little in order to… survive.. .

To survive.. Just what the heck does that mean?? Where is my war heroes medal? Yet im called a survivor.. won to be given reverence or feared… but when I look in the mirror, all I see is a poor black mixed asian disabled woman forever broken by the past that shattered the body held within this skin. …

So I try to imagine myself trauma free
And so little comes to mind…
It's a stuck feeling you get when ambivalence prevails over all reasoning and making meanings of such chaos? Are you out of your mind?/ How does one choose to find happiness or joy or anything positive out of deep pain and hurt? I guess time will tell

But in the mean time

I do try to imagine myself trauma free