I

Trauma is not as gory as it is given off to be 

Trauma can be beautiful; it can be justified

No, it is justified.

To the girl who had burdens heavier than her body.

To the woman who grew into shouldering responsibilities and cannot let go now.

To the girl who tried to find the rhythm of her life.

To the girl who wanted to scream, fight back against tradition.

To the woman who has constantly kept faith and light alive.

To the girl who tried to maintain sanity but kept losing her game every time.

To the girl who fought

I saw her fight

I heard the chaos in her mind

I saw the chains, the restrictions 

To the woman who still stands 

Eyes bright with a lifted smile

Scarred

Burnt

Yet, still trying to break off

Still trying to find her stand, her place.

I see her reach out to the girl, saying, "Stay through it" – only if she truly could, but time has been lost.

Now this woman only remembers.

She remembers how calloused her hands became at a young age.

She remembers what it felt like waking each morning knowing it was yet another cycle of household responsibilities and family responsibilities.

She is tired, yet she understands.

It will make me better, right? she asks

“I mean, it is meant to”, she says

But then, better according to whose standards?

The one set up by a society with a dead end?

She knows structure has to be there.

She does, but to whose restraint?

Now, she is at a tie 

Between understanding and fighting, it’s all she knows; she has searched, yet she still finds traces of the same standards.

She wants to be more, yet the system has left her with a package – idolised trauma.

She is left with clashing thoughts and different voices, afraid to take the reins and afraid to do what she has always wanted.

Yet again, the woman looks at the girl.

One more time, she tries to reach out, to guide, but she realises they are too broken.

Two broken pieces 

The mark has already been made

They wear the scars like armour.

They embrace the trauma that cannot be fixed.

So they stand.

They stand with what has been made of them.

They do not resign to fate

They choose to become out of their unbecoming

It’s painful

It means tears and screams, a heart pounding,  hands shaking.

It’s next to pouring salt on a deep wound, but healing has to occur, doesn’t it?

Now, she holds the girl.

The one who was her beginning 

She begins to fill in the missing parts 

To renew 

To own without shame

For a tampered will can always find its way back to the origin.

For strength can be out of defeat

The past can be the foundation for the future.

So I watch the woman resign; she reaches within; she holds in her hand the object of her destruction, and then she turns it into a tool, and she begins to redesign.

She begins to repaint

Even with the scars.

Why?

For there is beauty even in ruins.

– Alria