I had a therapist once who,
drunk on her own influence, or
maybe just rehashing her own
childhood wounds (this is the
nice interpretation), was
so cruel to me, she shaped
me into a new person.
All these years later and she still
swims up, still manages to unravel
every good thing. We don’t
talk about therapy harm enough, the
obliteration of it. What happens
when the person we are seeking safety
from is the person who is dangerous?
Someone who can’t clock their own power.
Disorientation doesn’t even begin
to describe it. The damage still hurtles through,
always a swift undercurrent.
Once she said to me, “I’m worried
you will have everything you ever
wanted and still, you’ll never
be happy.” As if happiness is some
permanent state of being or something
we arrive at, or the goal. I wanted
to scream, instead I politely
nodded.
I can’t even write in this poem the worst
of what she said, or did. I still carry the shame,
even though it was never mine
to carry. I’ll give it back to her now,
scour myself a clean river, free
from her weight. When I
rest in the clear morning light,
come back into myself,
into my own knowing, I can
see my way through. I was
always mine.
I take it all off now,
give it back, step out
of her story.
I am free,
I am free,
I am
free.