I wrote this poem because I’m tired of hearing people say,
“I’m healed.”
Healed from what?
Some things cannot be undone.
What happened, happened.
The body remembers.
The nervous system remembers.
The mind remembers — even when we wish it wouldn’t.
Every wound leaves a scar.
Yes, scars fade.
But they are never completely erased.
We have flashbacks.
We get triggered.
A smell.
A tone.
A look.
A room.
A person.
An event.
And suddenly we’re not fully in the present anymore.
That doesn’t mean we haven’t grown.
It means trauma leaves an imprint.
You don’t delete that.
You learn how to manage it.
You learn what steadies you.
You learn what to avoid.
You learn when to breathe through it.
You learn when to leave the room.
That’s not weakness.
That’s skill.
Society likes the word healed because it sounds finished.
Clean.
Neat.
But real life isn’t neat.
My truth is management.
It’s knowing my triggers.
It’s mapping exits without meaning to.
It’s building routines that keep me regulated.
It’s choosing carefully who gets access to me.
It’s saying, “I’m okay,”
While still doing the internal work.
We don’t erase what happened.
We don’t undo trauma.
We move forward by managing it.
Some days that management feels calm.
Some days it feels like war.
But it is still progress.
It is still strength.
“Management saved my life more than the word healing ever did.”
Because management means I pay attention.
It means I know my nervous system.
It means I don’t shame myself for flashbacks.
It means I step outside when the room feels too loud.
It means I choose who gets access to my softness.
It means I breathe through the trigger instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.
That’s not defeat.
That’s skill.
And I think that truth needs to be spoken more.
Thank you for reading 🖤
#DislexicPoet