I don't want to share this poem with anyone—and yet.
And yet.
Shame really does grow in the dark.
Ten times a day, at least, it surfaces—
what did I say, how could I have said that, what will he, she, they think of me now?
I live in my head most days. Not enough in my legs.
***
My parents' first rule of thumb was humiliation into submission.
It worked. I don't blame them anymore.
But it lives in me still, coiled in the nervous system like wire,
emerging as obsession, as worry that won't sleep, as the sound of a whip
that needed no reason—
anything a child would naturally do was cause enough.
I didn't deserve it. I didn't not deserve it. I just was. And that was already
too much.
I couldn't simply be me.
***
I wish those moments weren't the ones that defined me.
If I could be unscathed—just that. Just once.
To not carry it in my body
like a town I never chose but cannot leave.
***
Now I write. I publish. I live in America where Shame is a mascot.
Wide open for rejection, humiliation, invalidation—
all the old familiar schoolboy jousts.
But they are out there. I am here.
Learning, slowly, to feel my legs. To stand in them. To trust the ground.
***
I need a break from this deluge—
this thinking, this drowning in feeling ashamed.
So let me ask, quietly, with everything I have:
Can I share this with at least one of you?
About the Creator
Paul Aaron Domenick
“I am mine. Before I am ever anyone else’s.” --Nayyirah Waheed
“Publication is the auction of the mind of man.” --Emily Dickinson
“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.” --Franz Kafka
Keep reading
More stories from Paul Aaron Domenick and writers in Poets and other communities.
Comments (3)
Yes, you can share this. And I’m really glad you did. This is incredibly honest and moving :-)
Tribe.💕
I, for one, a friend of shame through my own stupid selfish mistakes, am glad you shared this, my friend. I feel the anxiety, anguish and pain in each and every line, but also feel a sense of relief? Maybe. Writing is helpful, cathartic. As we both know and this was a brilliant example. As hard a read as it was, you did it with grace and poetic eloquence. Bravo!