I’ve written a long poem about my experience of PTSD. I can’t get it published. The number of rejections are ridiculous. Today on socialmedia a posting snapped me back into that anger again. Nearly forty years of work with hugely damaged and damaging individuals left its own damage that I have had to deal with. I was lucky to get access to a very sensitive and sensible psychiatrist and psycholgist that brought me out of a very dark time in my life. So I am publishing the second verse of a long poem “The examination of time and its many modes” which I have avoided performing but feel that I have to do this now to complete a journey.
Time redefined
And now?
Am I marooned here?
You told me to go
go go go go go
when you decided
that it was done
that you were done
with me.
But I have been left here
somehow
then now
now then.
Time stands still
for some things.
Trapped in this silence
now and then.
A fracturing of time.
Fractured?
Torn?
Shredded?
Ripped?
Sheered?
I struggle
for words.
It’s not true
that time heals
it simply
loses pain.
I am like a bell
that has not chimed true
for so long.
But I am not silent
only in quietness
will you hear
the deep vibration
of my calm.
I can’t make
up for lost time.
Making up
for lost time?
What time?
Who’s time?
A clock
Clocka
Clagan
Or Clocc.
A silent
Instrument
Missing a bell
Is called
A Time piece.
I clock you.
You you you you
You. And you!
I refuse to be
Defined by you
By what you, you, you,
You. And you
Did to me.
I am the man
The man I am
But what you did doesn’t
Define me.
You will not
Define me.
My anger
About what you did
You you you
You. And you.
Does not define
Me and my life.
It is you see
Only a small
Part of what I call me.
A small part
Of who I am
Now.
This is my time
My space
And I decide.
©Rob Cullen
