I can go back in time
And hang in the squid ink sky
And watch the scene
Like smoke, the unfurling nightmare
I can go back and repeat
A cipher, a string of numbers
Again and again, unheard
And how will they know I'm in this state?
I can watch spectres jogging through the fog.
I can feel my wet, bare arse
Clinging to the muddy bank
With the circle cast around me,
Quarters called, Watchtower Lords
Band of strangers pissing me off
I can feel that its complete
The end of a road that's well defined.
Anger and fresh blood
Line my throat, as tight as a tourniquet
I lick my mouth and cry.
Where are my teeth?
Fragments of trauma, Pearly Polaroids
Taking comfort, never knowing
That their destiny changed
That they were smashed, or impressed into soil.
I can smell crisp, stale blood
Brown tornado swirling from my hair
Before it fled my face
Still scarred from the glass
Still unafraid of the Grim Reaper
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The Wheel of Fortune is a moment where life changes, rapidly. I decided to write a poem about how one moment can change your whole lifecourse. For me, that moment was a near death experience. This event changed my whole lifecourse- I don't know who I would be without it. You may have noticed I'm bald. To cope with complex PTSD and panic disorder, I pulled all my hair out. Just this one facet of the trauma was life altering, as it maimed my appearance. I am glad that it did, as it meant that people who have loved me have to look beyond my appearance. This accident also helped solidify my pagan path, as I moved closer toward healing techniques in hope for a solution. I was already reading the cards, and I read them more just trying to find a route back to who I was before this accident.
The section about repeating a cipher is about trying to get the strangers who came to help me to phone my parents. I knew their landline off by heart. I remember the terror of wondering if I would be die and my parents wouldn't know. Nobody would listen to me they were all chatting and tryingt o figure out what to do... children are often silenced; but in that moment my voice was probably the only think that kept me awake, I had to make sure someone phoned my mum and dad so I just repeated the number until someone noticed.
My teeth were also lost in this accident, and goddess knows what happened to them! In traama, there is the shamanic view of our soul parts "pinging" off in fragments during traumatic experiences, or the view of fragmenting trauma in psychotherapy. These teeth are now symbols to me, of what I have lost. And gained I suppose!