Lindsay Kolasa

somehow in this shattering,
in this smattering
of what held me together
knit tightly like feathers
around me
to ground me…

once it broke to pieces
and I suffered through the releases;
throwing me against walls in the dark,
grabbing at walls, leaving marks.

it wasn’t until then
that I could begin to learn the whims
of that tiger within…
then,
I could begin
to stand my ground,
I could crawl through
my own forest
without a sound…

this is when I was crowned:

survivor,
deep sea diver,
hardship thriver,
didn’t cry for
help
when I needed to
because my voice
was locked
in solitude.

in a dream
I spun around a room
until a lion
yelled into my mouth
“freedom.”

I fell to the floor
relieved from the chaos
that spun me round,
the weight of that
pulled me back to the ground.

everything is adding up
now that I know
the word
“survivor” —
MacGyver
of the inner world,
of that little girl
fractured from her
skip and twirl,
buckled under shame and fear,
mind alert
but hard to steer.

she flew outside her body that day
she wasn’t going back,
I had to beg her to stay;
harder for her to return and play.

a skip and twirl
brings her closer…
some loving hands
will get her unfrozen…
some heart-felt words
will chase away
the ghost
of that memory —
that moment
when child
was forced to be woman
too soon…
was forced out of her
fragile cocoon — too soon.

but this story goes back for miles…
it worsened the last
seven generations
of social constipation…
of environmental degeneration…

is this your story
or mine?
or, do we even have
the time
to define
the difference
in this rhyme?

of what I’ve heard,
of what I’ve seen,
while walking
in between
life and death
the space between breaths;
we have a common story
that should get less glory,
so we can finally
let go of the suffering
clouding the pain
and enter another refrain:
that there is no gain
and no loss
in this plane,
just lessons to be learned
and each will get their turn
to resolve a debt,
to reap what has been earned.

and yet,
somehow in this shattering
in this smattering
of what held me together…

it’s all gone…
almost all gone…
away…
forever…
severing the tie
to a lie
I didn’t devise,
but learned to rise
above it
only to tell it —

to shove it.

August 29, 2010 — My most personal poem yet…and an offering to those who have suffered from child sexual abuse and have decided to journey through the world to rediscover their original Truth and Beauty (that which was never tarnished). I wrote this poem months after doing deep, personal work on my own trauma. Please feel free to share this with those in your community and network that can use encouragement to voice themselves…to find the time to speak their minds and hearts…to take that which is hidden and let the light shine in…one at a time is where we begin… Here are the other two poems that are part of this trilogy, Womanhood, Sketch #1 and Womanhood, Sketch #2.