When You Visit
By: Victoria Reinbold
Tags: Trauma, Poetry, Healing, Creative Writing, PTSD

“Of course, we’re made up of what we’ve forgotten too, what we’ve tried to bury or suppress. Some forgetting is necessary and the mind works to shield us from things that are too painful; even so, some aspect of trauma lives on in the body, from which it can reemerge unexpectedly”

― Natasha Trethewey, Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir

You do not visit often and I am thankful.

In the hours without you, my hope

blooms with Spring, meditation

stirs Summer lakes, freedom dances

with the Autumn leaves, floating.

in Winter night’s, when condensed

snow crowds twinkling Space, then falls,

Schubert’s Serenade melodicizes serenity.

However, you are the unexpected guest,

knocking, knocking, knocking

often without an hour’s notice.

You damage the door frame and absorb

the daylight with your shadow,

looming as darkness falls, and still,

you do not cease.

When you visit,

I move to the house

within my head.

Here, the first apple tree comingles

with the woodwork of my cottage.

Its offspring, mature bows and young saplings,

span from the porch steps through endless

acres, bounded by the surrounding fence-

stone boulders blanketed by basking moss.

Beyond, the sea shore hushes rattling leaves

of the descendents, soothing their branches

with the salt seasoned wind.

Whispers-

“Welcome home”

Within, oaken bookshelves decorate

walls, an alabaster cream.

The fireplace cackles alongside

the creaking victrola- playing

big band jazz, classical, sometimes,

a singular melody of love

coating iridescent memories.

Steam summersaults upward, then disappears,

fleeing the glass teapot brooding among the mantle.

Always, peppermint permeates the mustarding

pages of old books chattering amongst

antique oddities: telegram machines, preserved

polaroids, mummified insects, and a miniature

grandfather clock chiming Westminster Quarters.

Chimes-

“Welcome home.”

When you visit, I hide amid

the knowledge folds, creativity

fermenting with the stored apple bins

safe-tucked behind the backdoor. I imagine

stories within my study. I write them into blank

journals, the endnotes of books, letters, within

the singular room atop the stairwell, where arched

walls and the cathedral window speculates

the orchard below, peaks into the twisted bark

of the ancient one, the apple tree before all others.

I tuck these stories onto bookshelves

for safekeeping, knowing you cannot

touch them within my cottage, nor mar them

with your presence- your absence

of goodness. They remain safe

from you, here.

When you leave, the milky way wrangles

A salmon stroked sun below the tree line.

You disappear, somewhere beneath

the cerebral, where my subconscious

Battles you quietly, away from awareness.

I return and there remains your note.

I do not read, instead, I enter through the damaged

door frame and observe the living room.

You stained the carpet, accenting it with your Merlot.

You stole the Cosmos from the flower vase,

seeding the floor with weathered porcelain.

When I smell lingering eucalyptus,

surrounding the evergreen invades

spoiled milk. You do not scathe my favorite

portrait, though; after all, it is your favorite too.

I look where your footprint

impressions the doormat,

the mark slowly fading.

In that moment,

I know if permanence

is inevitable, your damage,

at least, is manageable.

Somewhere, perhaps in the bedroom,

I hear my labrador yawn mid-stretch. A thump,

then clattering paws skitter in the hallway door,

ecstatic.

Wind seeps through the bay window

crack, whispering. The schizoid alarm clock,

beeps the Westminster Quarters, chiming.

She appears with crazed, infatuated eyes

and jumps to my chest. Her elongated tongue

laps-

“Welcome Home.”