They Said: a trauma haiku
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The recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus has been surreal and rattling, even to the most battle-hardened psyche. There's nothing like an invisible enemy to strip away any remaining shreds of your sense of security and ease.
This has been true for the global community as a whole, but the damage is particularly acute for those of us for whom grief and anxiety are nothing new.
It can be challenging to articulate, to those outside our circle, why exactly this experience can be so excruciatingly triggering for us, especially those of us in supposedly low-risk groups.
But it is very difficult to take comfort in statistics when you have already drawn a very statistically unlikely short straw, and paid dearly as a result. It is very hard for us to rationalize away the chances that them could very easily become us. And it is nigh on impossible to have faith that everything will be okay when we've heard all the empty promises before.
Wresting the words from an already trauma-addled brain to explain this in any coherent format is more than most of us can likely bear at this point in time.
And so, instead, I offer you a haiku:
Never fear, they said.
You and your baby? Low risk.
Definitely low.
Trust in your body,
They said. You are young, healthy.
It will all be fine.
Just follow the rules—
You'll be safe, they said. You can
Control the outcome.
You would surely know
If something were wrong, they said.
And it could be fixed.
Look at these numbers!
The odds are in your favor,
they said. Why worry?
Don't you fret—only
Underlying conditions
Cause problems, they said.
They said all these things.
And I believed. I trusted.
I thought we were safe.
They said all these things.
And I believed. Then I put
My baby in the ground.