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<\/a><\/p>\nMe, 5th grade, dressed up for a class play.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Every Day Life<\/p>\n
After the Attack<\/p>\n
By<\/p>\n
Jennifer Angelina Petro<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The day after.<\/p>\n
The slipping back<\/p>\n
Into your body.<\/p>\n
The stepping back<\/p>\n
Into your life.<\/p>\n
The sitting down<\/p>\n
With your perpetrators<\/p>\n
At the breakfast table,<\/p>\n
In church, at Thanksgiving dinner,<\/p>\n
The friends coming over<\/p>\n
To play in a house<\/p>\n
Where you were pinned down,<\/p>\n
The getting up the next morning,<\/p>\n
The shutting down<\/p>\n
Of what happened,<\/p>\n
The pushing it away,<\/p>\n
The surviving by vanishing<\/p>\n
In plain sight,<\/p>\n
The slow forgetting<\/p>\n
So that life can go on<\/p>\n
Even though the innocence<\/p>\n
Of running outside on a long, drifting<\/p>\n
Summer\u2019s evening, disappears<\/p>\n
Like a firefly in the trees.<\/p>\n
The terror burrowing<\/p>\n
Into your body, into your spirit,<\/p>\n
Into the fabric of your mind,<\/p>\n
To be carried with you<\/p>\n
The rest of your life, like<\/p>\n
A railroad spike in your guts,<\/p>\n
That stabs you again and again<\/p>\n
When you least expect it\u2014<\/p>\n
When a smell, the sound<\/p>\n
Of cicadas, the flashback,<\/p>\n
The Thanksgiving dinner,<\/p>\n
The priest holding up<\/p>\n
The Eucharist, triggers it all again\u2014<\/p>\n
And you feel like<\/p>\n
You\u2019re going to vomit the horrible truth,<\/p>\n
And you freeze as you\u2019re walking<\/p>\n
To the store, and you shimmer<\/p>\n
Out of your body again,<\/p>\n
And don\u2019t come back<\/p>\n
For hours, and yet, you go about<\/p>\n
Your day, a living mist, a disappearing<\/p>\n
Person made of sand,<\/p>\n
And somehow you manage<\/p>\n
To return to your life\u2014<\/p>\n
The stain on your soul<\/p>\n
Visible in your eyes,<\/p>\n
And yet, you move on, you make it,<\/p>\n
You survive another wave,<\/p>\n
You emerge from the dark waters,<\/p>\n
And you stride towards the healing<\/p>\n
Into freedom, into the reclaiming<\/p>\n
Of your life\u2014the fucking forgiveness<\/p>\n
And twisted loyalties, the fucking<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a gift, the fucking it was meant<\/p>\n
To be, the fucking you somehow<\/p>\n
Made it happen or deserved it,<\/p>\n
The fucking you will let it<\/p>\n
Hold your life hostage anymore,<\/p>\n
The wonder of who you are\u2014<\/p>\n
A warrior battling every moment<\/p>\n
To live, to recover your innocence<\/p>\n
From pain\u2019s tangled trees,<\/p>\n
Where fireflies still blink, like<\/p>\n
Beacons in the night,<\/p>\n
Reminding you that you still<\/p>\n
Shine.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Me, 5th grade, dressed up for a class play.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n