coffee and sex

16 I meet a peer dying from addiction

18 I witness my first heroine overdose

20 my first GSW

We saved the officer

The bullet merely grazing his bulletproof vest

We couldn’t save the kid

I didn’t care that he was the killer

21 I realized how numbing helping professions can be

when I couldn’t look the loved ones of a newly deceased relative in the eye

offer condolences

21…

I sit on my therapists couch my eyes closed

Hugging a throw pillow she has on hand

My water bottle by my feet

We practice lifespan integration

I see flashes of memories as she reads them

Focus on her voice to keep me in the room

2 words stand out to me

linger in my body

now we are talking trauma

so we carry this in both mind and body

it starts as knots in my stomach

then butterflies

then tightness in my chest

jaw pain

then nausea

Coffee and sex

Our visits short

Meet for coffee

Or to have sex

He’d coerce me into having sex

I crumble within myself

How can I let him manipulate me into that

But he said he loved me…

But he didn’t

I loved him

He just wanted the sex

And I’m not bulletproof