Childhood Poem by Raven Taylor

Sometimes my memory of childhood breaks like a wrist. I find myself trying to forget where I come from to eat the pain of never being loved carefully. No one ever showed me what it was like to be gently folded before being put into a box. So now, I struggle to find the places where my creases fall.

Sometimes my memories of childhood are broken glass shattered in different parts of my body to remind me where my trauman comes from. Today my trauma comes from the bottom of my feet, yesterday it came from the palms of my hands. Tomorrow, it will probably find its home sitting in the middle of my chest pulling on my lungs bringing me back to the question that I always seem to ask myself. Why do remember disasters? I remember disasters simply because they raised me.

They taught me the true meaning of dysfunction and forced me to know notice how vulnerable of a person. I never stand still in the eye of the storm. I spin around in uncertainty of the moment. The majority of my childhood being the target. There were times where my body belonged to everyone but me. I am just now learning what safety feels like.

Sometimes, I don't understand why I've ever survived. I don't understand how Ive managed to keep my body from falling apart completely. My past is like a hazard zone and the memories that come along with it reminds me of the razor blades cutting through my skin.

Sometimes my memories of childhood break like wrists. They are floodgates busting open. This is my storage room inventory. I am unpacking shoes with worn-out soles and jackets with pockets full of trauma.

I am unpacking the anger that sleeps on my chest and the regret that boils underneath my tongue. I am taking back my body and I'm cleaning up the battlefield that this dysfunctional world has made of it.My bones don't bend the way they used to anymore but my body still knows what it takes to be right again. I am healing.

Sometimes, I'm a car crash with good intention. I'm a runner who tries too hard to win the race. A creation that doesn't know why it was created. My memories of childhood are malicious and rough around the edges. They are the nightmares that keep me up at night and the postcards that remind me of where I've been. I've been wrapped around suffocating elbows or permanent smells and buried backtrack ditches that can never be covered up.