Poetic Remedy No. 13

Sometimes the hardest part of building a peaceful life is actually allowing yourself to live in it.

There are parts of your childhood you just don’t talk about. You keep those rooms locked because it feels safer that way. But when you grow up always watching for danger, you carry that threat into every single room you walk into as an adult. You spend your life waiting for things to go wrong, even when you are completely safe.

This poetic remedy is for the ones healing from a childhood they don’t talk about.

Poetic Remedy No. 13

there are things you have never said out loud.
not because they didn’t happen

but because some rooms
you learned to keep locked
just to get through the day.

you learned very early
what it felt like
to be small in a home
that was supposed to be safe.

to read the air
before you entered a room.

to make yourself invisible
when the atmosphere changed.

to be terrified
of the one person
who was supposed to be
your safe place.

and you carried that
into every room you ever walked into after.

always watching.
always waiting.
always ready
for something to break.

but you are not in that house anymore.

the air in this room
is yours to breathe.

nobody is coming
to make it unsafe.

you made it out.

and the child who learned to survive in that house
deserves to know
that she did.

she got you here.

— Debra King

Beautiful Things Grow Here

P.S. Poetic Remedy No. 13 is now available as a poetry print, created to offer a little comfort on the days you need it most. You can find it here: Link to Print

The Soul Work

You don’t have to tell the story of what happened to you to prove it was real. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t explaining it to other people, it’s just admitting to yourself how much you had to handle when you were small.

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