Trauma Dreams Again

I awoke from a dream, yesterday—

My brother had smashed a fire extinguisher,
Then my dad arrived on the scene;

Implicit assumption, it must have been me,
—The look on his face of sheer righteousness and disgust,
As he pointed the extinguisher,
And squirted it at me, as punishment;

I tried to shout and to scream,
To set the record straight,
But nothing would come out,
Such is the way in dreams;

My brother showed no integrity,
Kept quiet to save his own skin,
And my terror and helplessness only grew and grew,
As they ganged up against me;

But such is the intensity and overwhelming crescendo of pain,
That I always manage to overcome that sleep paralysis,
Eventually,
And I came-to, screaming at the top of my lungs,
My voice already hoarse and squeaky,

From a hypothetical scenario all-too illustrative,
Of the kinds of emotional traumas that I’ve experienced,
The dream-scenario absurd and exaggerated¹,
But the pain, not so;

The physical eruption of pain, trauma, indignity, confusion, overwhelm,
As I was squashed into an ever-tighter and tighter space,
With not a chance nor a hope in the world of ever defending myself,
Against the ones who’re supposed to be on my side,

In life was manifested as a shaking of the neighbours’ house by the violence of my screaming and anger,
Across an air gap between non-connected houses,
It just doesn’t bear thinking about;

Those reactions were only used against me as justification for not being deserving of compassion in the first place,
Time and again;

So when I put it all like that…
The dreams are entirely understandable,
And absolutely bone-chilling.

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¹ Actually perhaps not so exaggerated. That kind of over-reaction and bizarre form of punishment/revenge from my dad was a perfect illustration. It’s part of what makes the dreams so terrifying— they feel so accurate.

And I feel a bit lighter now after describing that :).

🌪