I can only image how ordinary it must have felt for you getting on the phone with me,
but honestly both times I have spoken to you on the phone at work release- and now here-
have been nostalgic,
like a loose grip on a past that I remember vaguely by the vibrations strumming your vocal chords
and the familiar energy travelling the frequencies of your sound waves
images take shape,
and all isn’t completely idealism and abstract
how far I’ve gotten away from my past, that I can barely remember a friend of so many years-
from so many years back-
whom lived right across the street from my best friend?
it’s like where did you go…or I actually??
it’s poignantly symbolic of the very childhood I have lost to chaotic and traumatic memories,
memories I couldn’t have escaped a second too soon,
although I dream of visiting the memories to unearth a self
that burrowed itself to survive and protect itself from implosion,
but it took with it vital memories,
causes,
reasons,
and people of importance
and to have a tighter grip on where I’m going,
I need to also tighten that grip on where I have been
and although I detest the slowness of steps-
feeling more alive, in control, guarded, safe, and unphased by the speed of immediacy, impulsiveness and spontaneity-
because in the life I have been fortunate or unfortunate to have to have lived, each moment is special and equally up for grabs
because the next isn’t promised,
and rarely ventured with any serious contemplation,
survival and coping, being the preordainment of my existence more than anything else
yet, I have to admit that details get lost in the blur and velocity of things,
but I find more of myself in the piece by piece processes-
like a phone call with you-
and the loose grip that begins to tighten on who I was,
where that was,
how and why I was
and who and what helped shaped those lost facts
to you,
it may be more than just a phone call,
but to me it is the chance at a more whole and healed life,
combining the two forces of yesterday and tomorrow into the now,
all in just a call-which was more like a conjuring forth of the unnamable things forgotten that are equally important pieces to the jigsaw of my fractured memory-
in prison,
what was-is fantasy,
what can be-is imagination
and what is-is a blur
and as the focus comes in and out,
there are sharp corners and objects flying your way
and each moment is constantly spent bracing, not embracing…
if you understand that, then you understand trauma,
and that is all that needs to be said of it,
it has a language and knowing of its own that words do no justice to
but to call it out for what it is,
because the claws of trauma tend to tighten its grip on you
molding who you believe yourself to be,
or to have been,
and still long to become
so with all that said, thank you for picking up…
it picked me up
no one understands how much answering the phone does for people here
it’s those physical things like pictures and voices that connect us to freedom
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