When you feel the impossible

breathing down your neck

you're on the right track. Don't

stop, the work creates energy to feed

the work. Recovery is hungry. There’s a vast universe

beyond trauma, a place

not quite understood. There’s no map, no path. Mystery

is a savage freedom, a needle to stitch

the bones to the soul again, outside the systems

which warn us we should never,

ever tell

the truth of being unstitched. Ignore them.

What’s gone is gone. We can’t process trauma

within the same systems that create it. We run outside

in a ferocious pack, on the edge of oceans, flowing

over spiky canyons, scrub and thistle, flowing

through cities like fog, ungovernable. We clean wounds

with sticks and stones, we hunt and cook on our own. Nobody

is free - some of us are dealing. Recovery

isn't about forgiveness, it’s too complex

for that, such as how

do we define power and who

controls it? Build your healing in the outer limits

where you can stoke raging pyres beyond either/or,

linear thinking. Be willing to examine

power dynamics; are we able

to dismantle them, or live

beyond? Be fearless. There’s no justice

in this world, so we’ll make

a new one. My rapist

will never pay for his crimes, neither will

my mother or any of the millions

who abuse us. There’s no settling

the score, no

lost and found. There is courage, though,

and un-mapped territories

where we craft the beginnings

of emancipation. Born

in the darkest hour, it sparks

in community. Like this: you

will make your way, I

will find it glorious –