Well, I missed posting Sunday through Wednesday of this week. Life’s mundanities got in the way on Sunday. Then, on Monday there was a traumatic incident where I work. You can read about it here. I’ve spent the last three days just getting through the day. The math says, with this post, I completed 87% of the challenge. Good enough.

I wrote the following on Tuesday night and shared it with the Trauma Support Team at my work yesterday.

Close to Home
A friend of mine was violently harmed
where I work, yesterday.
Of course, I was sad
scared for his wellbeing
but what was there for me
to feel traumatized by?
It is a risk of living in America these days.
It is a risk of the system I work in.
It is a risk of the job he does.
I was fine . . . or so I thought.

This morning,
after my usual sleepless night,
I went to work,
walking in the cold,
not thinking about
what the day would look like.
We were closed to the public.
Many co-workers stayed home.
I was fine . . . or so I thought.

The more I heard people sharing
their feelings and thoughts,
the more I heard
the details of what happened
and what my friend had gone through,
the less fine I felt.

---

Dissociated mind
Disconnected thoughts
Disoriented self
Dissatisfied with life
Disturbed reality
Distressed emotions
Distorted beliefs

Unaware of what’s real
Filled with pain and confusion
All that matters is to make it stop
Stand up and fight for your life
Make the pain stop
Go to the source
Make it stop

---

I don’t know the words
to describe how full I feel
of the emptiness
inside my mind and heart.
I’m not filled with fear,
yet fear is not absent,
My safe place was never safe.
Safety was an illusion
that has now been shattered
the way a prism shatters the light,
refracting it into the multihued
spectrum of bright colors.
Only, here, there is no
beautiful rainbow to be seen
after the storm of yesterday’s violence.
This violence, so close to home,
feels like an extension of the violence
happening throughout the world.
I have no control over any of it.
Near or far,
the violence isn’t mine to control.
I can protest it.
I can appeal to the powers that be,
to change their policies,
to change their responses,
to change the infrastructure,
but I have no power over anyone else,
only myself.

lem 11/28/2023