Hi – I’m Hanna and I write poetry about everything. Last year, I published a poetry collection written from inside the trauma – the body that survived it, carried it and kept trying to build a life around all of the things it remembered.
Last year, I also started piecing together what that same trauma looks like from the other side of the room. It’s from the perspective of a man loving a woman whose trauma didn’t disappear just because the danger did.
He watches her navigate the ordinary aftermath of survival. The things that don’t necessarily look like trauma unless you know what you’re looking at. The apologies that come too quickly. The flinching. The shutting down. The days when she loud and alive and almost forgets what happened to her and the days when simply getting out of bed takes everything she has.
He doesn’t always understand her.
He doesn’t always get it right.
Sometimes he has to learn that loving her and knowing how to love her are two very different things.
And no, before anyone gets excited, there is no secret man. I made him up. On purpose.
Part of writing this book has been a manifestation of sorts. If I’m going to believe there is a version of love out there that feels different from what I’ve known, I figured I should probably know what that actually looks like.
So, I gave him a voice.
Apparently, my manifestation technique is less vision board and positive affirmations and more construct an emotionally intelligent fictional man from scratch and give him an entire poetry collection.
Completely reasonable.
When I started writing him, I thought I was writing about what it might look like to love someone with trauma but as I’m piecing this together, I’m starting to think I was wrong.
I think I’m writing about what it looks like to stop trying to save them. Because when we talk about loving someone who has survived terrible things, we tend to make the person into some kind of hero.
They’re patient. Understanding. They help. They heal. They save.
But I never needed saving and I don’t want him to save her either. Actually, that might be the most important things about him. He can’t.
There are places inside of her he can’t follow. Memories he wasn’t there for. Wounds he didn’t make and therefore doesn’t get to take credit for healing. Sometimes all he gets to do is notice.
She ate today.
She slept last night.
She laughed.
And maybe that doesn’t sound like progress to someone who has never had to measure a life in chaos, but he knows better.
That’s where this poem lives. It’s one of the first pieces from the new collection and I think that says more about the man I’m trying to write, and the kind of love I’m trying to imagine, than I could ever explain myself.
It isn’t about telling her how strong she is. Or saving her. Or pulling her to her feet.
It’s about knowing when to sit the fuck down.
She Doesn’t Eat
She’s sitting
on the kitchen floor
back
against the fridge
knees to her chest
like the world
got too loud
and this was
the quietest place
she could find
I nod
remind her it’s safe
I used to find her
in between
the toilet and bathtub
this is better
there’s a bowl of cereal
on the counter
milk gone warm
it’s been there for hours
she doesn’t remember
“I made a list today”
she says
like she’s offering proof
of existence
then
softer
“but I only crossed off
wake up”
I don’t tell her
that’s enough
instead
I lower myself
to the tile beside her
let silence be the language
she reaches for my hand
her fingers
ice cold
“I keep forgetting
to eat”
she says
I nod
remind her I see
but today
I feel her
mean it
like an apology
like a confession
her mind races
all the damn time
echoes
of the past
a beating drum
of trying to live
right now
she isn’t sure
how to let go
or hold on
I watch her heart
ache
through this
juxtaposition
every damn day
I squeeze her hand
and we sit there
beneath the hum
of the refrigerator
like it might
sing her back
to life.