Bruises Without Scars

What is more powerful

what is seen visibly 

or what is beneath the surface.

The picture below is a depiction

of Genocide & Brutality in America.

Violence that is perpetually

more deadly and ignored. 

We focus upon the slain, those who do not get to go home and tell their side of the story.

We focus upon the tears and the horror of those who are permanently silenced & the living has to be their voice from beyond the grave.

Moments ago while conversing with my son he mentioned the name of a someone he follows (don't remember the name) and he described an innocent with police & afterwards (not saying it was the main culprit) lead to suicide.

I automatically thought of Kalief  Browder... While speaking, I started to cry for two young men I do not know & realized a portion of my own unvoiced pain.

For me, for more than a year people have inadvertently made me feel as if I do not matter.

After an incident that occurred on Monday January 6, 2020 - the aforementioned was escalated by physical violence in the presence of multiple witnesses. As if to reinforce, I am insignificant.

I have to fight with what is going on outside of me and what is going on underneath the surface.

I am trying to write right now & my body is attempting to shut itself down to block out the pain - which I know is a form of protection. Yet I cannot afford to slip into the darkness because there is no one here to pull me out.

To be treated like an animal.

thrown around, yelled at, humiliated, with brutal force and made to walk past a crowd of bystanders because someone wants to make you feel as if you don't matter. Wants to push you to your breaking point, wants what they feel for you to be more powerful than what you feel towards yourself.

When the outside word doesn't match with what is felt within can cause confusion.

To constantly have to remind yourself what is reality, to constantly take pictures to remind yourself what day it is, where you are at because repeated trauma affects the memory - be in a constant state of fear, to be terrorized over and over and it just keeps progressing and there is no other reasoning but you're a woman and you're black in America.

I am have internal bleeding, no one can see.

I have scars that aren't allowed to heal because newer ones are constantly added.

Every day I awaken I have to find a reason to keep going forward, not to give up and echo what the outside world is saying to me.

I am struggling & writing is my only outlet.

Today is only day 3.

I keep seeing their faces in my mind... Keep seeing the blurred faces in front of me without my glasses on.. I can feel myself being pressed to the ground and being yelled at to get up... can feel metal cutting into my wrists.. hands behind my back not even able to scratch my nose or sit comfortably.

Why do I have these memories on top of everything else I am enduring?

I don't know if I am processing my experience correctly or if as the days go by the memories will intensify.

I think the worse of it all, was getting inside of an elevator and told to face a wall with my hands behind my back.

Everyday I leave my home and exit it, I have to get in an elevator and look at the triangle corner and see the inside of the gray elevator and the dim light above my head and feel myself going downward.

Something so simple has traveled outside of a building with me - a reminder and as I said it's only day 3.

I cannot avoid taking the elevator or take the steps because I don't want a reminder - so I have to just go through it.

How does one deal with a new traumatic experience and fighting to get back their daughter?

This is beyond anyones breaking point & I don't know if I will crack or not.

I speak to my son because I feel the darkness over my shoulder - telling me I don't matter. That's why the court officer kept saying it over and over he must have known I would hear his voice in my head saying - no one cares about me, my case or what I am writing.

Right now, I just heard him say no one cares what you're writing and his face flashed before my eyes... knowing eventually I will have to see him again & he doesn't deserves space in my mind/thoughts.

When I leave work have to get inside of the elevator and fight off the memory of being treated less than a human being. Trying not to look at the triangle corner where I was told to look and place my head.... going downward.

 I want to cry but I have to call my daughter soon, so even my tears have to be placed on a schedule.

I have to protect everyone else by not feeling my own pain.

I will try to write again later....

I was guided to write, as a form of release - so I did.

Thank you for making me cry August....

I love you until the essence of no return.