Gasping

[Raven (ARGD)]

Sometimes, I awake, gasping, shaking,
Floundering in my sheets. I’m a terrible thing
To sleep beside, if you’re wondering.
There are a good few things
That wake me this way… people, mostly,
And the storms, fires, floods,
And those things that my brain does
All on its own.

Tonight, it was a person
The one who held my head under water
When I was small. I don’t remember it
Except for on nights like this.
Well… in a way. I remember… remembering it.
I know that doesn’t make sense.
I try not to think about that.

I remember it pretty clearly right now.
You see, I hadn’t been a quick enough learner,
Couldn’t hold my breath long enough for him,
So he’d thought this ought to teach me, I’m sure.
It’s funny, the way I remember it… the scene... the last time.
I watch like I wasn’t involved, in memory.
I can see my tiny arms flailing, splashing behind my head.
I can see… I can feel the way his fingers stretched
All the way around my skull, keeping me under.
Strangely, I remember… counting… counting the minutes?
I remember darkness and terror, fleeting dreams of strength.
I remember the way I knew his arm, the way my universe
Suddenly revolved around it, everything else so unsure.
Sound… it echoed, throbbed in my ear drums.
I could hear my heart making ripples in the water.
I remember not understanding
Why he let me up. Had I actually bruised him?
I was aware of how very small I was,
Beneath this giant, hulking body
Who could do whatever he wanted.
Was it because my arms had stopped?
Because they drifted out behind me?
I don’t remember much after that
Except for the gasping, the fear,
The aching vulnerability.
The world was blurry and grey,
As if I was still seeing through a haze
Of waving water. I heard voices
Like echoes above the surface.

It’s funny, though… I still learned to swim;
Learned by throwing myself into the deep end,
Just like he’d wanted me to learn.
That’s how I chose to learn everything,
Sink or swim, and go for the hardest goal,
Diving in head first.
I learned piano by playing Moonlight Sonata.
I started form poetry with Shakespearean Sonnets.
I had a professor who dared me to write in iambic pentameter.
I tackled karate by picking fights with black belts,
‘Though that venture was short-lived,
Learned to chop by moving the blade along
As fast as I could. The mishaps didn’t bother me.
I learn to ride downhill. I can’t learn anything
Any other way, and I don’t know why.

Now, sitting in the dark, waiting for the shaking
To subside, I can’t help but wonder…
Did he do this to me?
How much of me… did he create
With the experiences he forced into me?
Why can’t I get him out? Is that why?
Is he so vital, grafted to my personality…?
Inseverable? Maybe this is something
I should have kept from me forever.

Sometimes, I just wish
I wasn’t such a terrible thing
To sleep beside.

[Baywriter]

This was such a raw and intense write, Raven. You know, I really liked the way this developed. At first the readers are introduced to this horrifying memory and we are taken through it in such a way that it becomes almost like an out of body experience, I think. We are slowly given pieces of the image and the scene. What the speaker saw, then felt, then heard, and so on. The way that you took the reader through this was so vivid. But then we get to the lesson of it all, the way that this memory has impacted and continues to impact the speaker. It isn't just a terrifying memory. It's also a way of life, a difficult and disturbing way of learning, and each example of this brings the reader back to the initial image of a head being held under. I felt a strong connection to this way of learning, because I share that experience.
Then the end of the piece is interesting, where the speaker questions revisiting those experiences and why they were forced upon here, blaming herself in way for remembering these things. The last stanza was particularly telling of this pain, but it was so poignant. Great OM work. Thank you for sharing.

Bay

[oortcloudtwo]

This is an incredible (and regrettably unappreciated) piece. It is so jarringly believable that it forces the reader to not merely imagine how they occurred, but to fully empathize with them as well. There is the apprehensive build up in the first two stanzas, how they are disjointed and evasive, as if you are unsure if and how you want to confess to what occurred. There is flat out traumatic third stanza which hammers the reader with every nitty gritty nuanced detail that, even if they didn't experience it, can allow them to make connections with something that they did experience. Then there is the dissonant fourth stanza which reveals that the trauma had purpose and what it taught you. Indeed, we do learn something about ourselves even from trauma. But the fifth stanza goes full on introspective, wonder whether or not it was worth it, to learn that way. To live that way. There is no clear cut answer here. There is ambivalence here. There is real life here. This is a fine, fine, fine work that I am truly honored to have read. I can only hope that others will allow it to captivate them as it has me.

[everhopeful]

The stream of consciousness feel adds a lot to this poem for me because it's like you're talking to me, rather than at me, and it's certainly easy to end up doing the latter when conveying something which is obviously so horrific to experience. While I think that the way you have described that experience is obviously the core of your poem, the lasting impact it seems to have had on other areas of life is what hit me the most. While some people may think that learning everything the hard way is admirable, the bookend opening and closing stanzas remind us that being conditioned into a way of behaving can have an impact on other parts of our life, much to our frustration and detriment.
Excellent work.

[JASON]

This was a little disturbing but well written none the less.
Sad reality here is that so many people seem to suffer
from childhood trauma...
Judgement day is going to be a very long,very dark day for many....
congratulations on the spotlight.

[knpoet]

Congratulations on your place in the spotlight, Raven. This was a very disturbing piece, written with a lucidity which has a night-time quality about it, insightful and clearly delineated as our thinking often is in the quiet of the night, where memories surface from the depth of our consciousness and teach us things about ourselves which explain so much, while leaving so very much still unknown and unexplained. No wonder your sleep is restless and easily disturbed; the scars must run very deep. I do agree with the other reviewers, this is a very fine piece of writing and most worthy of the spotlight.

Kathy

[ladymaybebaby]

Sorry I missed this one as well the first time around, after reading through it I must say I am so very impressed with not only your skill but your writing style as well. You have a very engaging style that connects with the readers even though the subject matter is difficult, maybe that is why we connect so easily. Anyway superb work and this one belongs in the spotlight! Congratulaions on a well deserved honor!

-LMB
xoxo

[musie]

Hi Raven...Congratulation's on the Spotlight! I too cannot believe you did not get more reply's on this the first time around, but it is quite and intense read. I found myself holding my breath at such an unimaginable atrocity that one would have to endure...it is no wonder that there would be sleepless night's and or nightmare's...There is a great depth of emotional detail that your brought to the fore with a great deal of writing skill....Thank you for sharing something so very personal....Musie

[zomby9333]

Freud would have loved this... I can see him tapping the page excitedly, saying, "Yes! Exactly!"

[Josie]

I'm glad your narrator survived such a horrible experience. This was so well written, I felt it was happening to me. Congratulations on the spotlight recognition.

[everhopeful]

I think one of the words Bay used to describe this, 'intense', is perhaps as good a starting point as any. This is incredibly intense from start to finish, and while it is possible for a poem which is so fraught to read like it's all over the place, this one is so focused and well composed that you allow the reader to feel the speaker's pain in tandem with your words.
Congratulations on the spotlight!

[Philip16]

Congratulations, Raven, on your "Spotlight" and I think your poem should be mandatory reading in the manual on PTSD. The connection that you made between how you like to learn with the "trial by fire" method and your early childhood experience makes perfect sense to me. Chilling!
Philip16

[MBW]

It's so terrifying and involving, but what's weird to me is that the narrator doesn't seem terribly bothered by it; they're just questioning. Not to say that that's how it is. It's just the way I saw it when I read it. The way it's introduced, and built on, is really the closest thing to stream of consciousness that I've read. It's just like having somebody talk to you, or being in the mind of somebody who's recalling something. Fantastic. On second thoughts, it does seem like the narrator is bothered (and bothered quite a bit) after reading this again. What I like most about this (and what I feel I should take note of) is how you expressed most of this by showing and not telling. Interesting to see what kind of effect this had on the narrator throughout they're life, and them trying to come to terms, or identify, what effect this person's actions had. I'm reminded of this famous family, and the upbringing of the children in the family and how it effected their lives' progressions. The children in the family were subjected to insults and high-standards, pretty much abused verbally and physically abused by their father. What happened was that the children grew up to be highly successful, in terms of money, but they were plagued by psychological problems - they were suicide prone, depression prone, anxiety prone, OCD and OCPD prone and so on. I wonder how much of a person's character is shaped by a few pivotal experiences - like the experience here - and how much is down to genetics. Puzzling. This is a great writing. Got a lot of others thinking, and got me thinking too.

[dornicks]

A well documented account of an experience unlikely to be forgotten. I was tied on a horese one time so i couldn't fall off and then let loose. The old days had some strange ways. Thank you for sharing this and congratulations on the spotlight,

dornicks

[platinummoon]

A wonderful piece of writing. I Think the storyteller is in memory at a distant from his experience. That is why he seems a little hesitant.
In 'the good old days' they had bad, bad ways of making us learn. But like Babuschka dolls, the doll(child) who suffered this awful learning process, just puts a 'new doll' on top and gets on with life.
The experience remains buried only to surface in dreams.