final_thp_4thedition

Ariel Sobel
It’s 4 AM. Do you know where your mother is?
I do
I always do
She’s a floor above me screaming
Heaving up cries
Capsules of air won’t penetrate her lungs
She’s got the runs
She’s literally trying to run away
Evaporate
Escape
From a prison I can’t locate
So I guess I don’t really know where she is
I hope it’s dreaming
I can’t tell when her body swells with heavy breathing
Seething cries beneath her eyes
I don’t know
Where her PTSD has taken her
Mom has been kidnapped
Trapped in a memory of a man they call father’s hands
Beating her
I hate the name
It’s not a game
No one wins
Unless score is kept by the bruises on her skin
But it’s been years since she left him
Something’s underneath, beneath, within
The following spectrum of poems were presented during an
event held by USC’s Health Sciences Education Program, a
group dedicated to providing insight into various health
professions. Slamming Down the Stigma was an event
specifically held in order to help destigmatize mental illness.
When my mother got diagnosed with PTSD
I didn’t believe her
I thought it was just for soldiers
Men crushed by bullets or boulders
Marines in Vietnam burnt down by the Vietcong
Running
Flying
Dying
But I kept trying to understand
To demand
That my mother be normal
I didn’t see cuts so I ignored the bleeding
She was the parent
I wanted to be a child so I acted like one
PG | 5 PG | 6