Trauma Wars

My heart is staining my white sheets.

Bleeding from the core wounds reopened.

The words we hurled

at eachother hurt

far less

than the pain of pretending

these very words weren't true.

For weeks.

Months.

3 years

of playing ping pong with our traumas.

You send detachment my way,

I'll bounce conditions

to your side of the table.

Make sure and update the score board

so we can record

who's victorious in this

uphill battle.

The perfect victim.

Subject to the cruel shortcomings of their impractical partner.

Is it you

or I?

Or is it possible this wasn't a game,

but a dance.

A beautifully disastrous tango of expectations vs. blockages?

Our clumsy feet

stomping toes and pinning heels

building latent resentment

without acknowledgment

of the scuffs on our own shoes.

We created this mess together,

then threw one another the towel.

Not realizing

two hands mend broken things

much more efficiently than one.

written by Magyn Kennedy

Magyn Kennedy shot by Mckenna Hudson