How the human body reacts to Trauma

sometimes,
when i tell stories from my childhood,
i spit out the first age that comes to mind,
because half my life is desperately scribbled out,
in an attempt to deny the past.
sometimes,
when i see something too close to a half-forgotten fear,
an almost-familiar face or
bruises in the shapes of fingertips or
a certain brand of cutlery or
the most trivial tiny things,
there is nothing i can do
but remember
and remember
and remember.
sometimes,
when someone asks me what my worst memory is,
i laugh through the cobwebs
of all my half-buried remnants
of a hidden childhood that
i will die before i admit out loud
woven between my teeth and tongue
and never answer.
sometimes,
i play old images of faces,
people i’ve tried to forget for years
over and over again like a broken record
and i hope that
my dozens of contorted expressions
of fear and pain and begging
follow my ghosts to their graves.
sometimes,
when flashbacks become a common ritual,
i do not let myself cry
and i dwell on the thought
that i deserved every word
every hit
every second
and i still do.
sometimes,
when i cannot sort out what is real and what is not,
i decide on the comfort of denying it all,
because i am built, now, on lies
shaped in the foundation of a safe home
i did not live in.