March 2022 prompt
Before recovery, I knew I had buried memories. Haunted by a sense of dread, I tried to think my way into the past. My body’s response—anxiety, a tightness in my throat, a clenching in my stomach—told me that something bad had happened. Then I realized that I was looking for one big traumatic event. Maybe there was no such event. I ultimately decided that I would discover what I needed to know when I needed to know it, relying on my Higher Power to reveal memories when I was able to handle them.
Writing about what I don’t remember has helped me uncover the feelings underneath my fears. I become more patient. This poem was inspired by moving day, when my mother, brothers and I left my father on the farm and moved to town. I have no memory of that day.
I Don’t Remember
Forget. Forget-me-nots.
Knots. Twisted shifting stems
of not enough. Where are they?
I don’t remember.
Forgotten. Like the violets,
sprung up in the field, wild,
choked by growing leaves.
Where was he? Where was I?
Was there a moving van? Was he
standing on the stoop? Don’t go!
Leaving. How did I get here?
Jump/cut. Frame 1: painting my
desk from brown to white.
Frame 2: pink ruffled bed skirt.
Organdy curtains. How did I
get here? I forgot.
Names of flowers, states on diner
placemats. State of dejection.
Despair? Euphoria?
The violets have died.
Next year, they’ll pop up again
but I won’t be there.
Next year, I’ll be in the ruffled
bedroom. Where will you be?
I don’t remember.
Connection to Recovery:
Even if I can’t recall how I felt in certain situations, I can access the feelings by asking myself how an ordinary child would have felt. There is relief in allowing myself to be ordinary. There is also relief in realizing I don’t have to find one big traumatic event to be worthy o recovery. I can be patient and wait for memories to surface in my Higher Power’s time.
Prompt:
1.Write about any childhood event that you know was significant, but which you can’t recall. It could be moving, first day at school, any event you suspect you have denied recalling.
2.Connect with a feeling of dread from your childhood. Does that dread connect with any person, place, or thing?
3.Notice that the poem above feels fractured, disjointed, as if the narrative is not clear. That is intentional. Don’t try too hard to connect the dots. Just see what bubbles up.
