Trauma is a welling pool. It churns in the chest, sitting below the surface like the blood of earth, waiting to spill out into the world. But you must hold it down, like bile ascending above horizons of humiliation. Rising like new days lost in last night’s old. With most things, pressure is released and then falters. All explosions have a limited supply of destruction, and then they settle and life begins rebuilding again.
But trauma has no bounds. It blows into lifetimes. There is no bottom in the dark round pit of trauma. Just a spiraling, never ending chasm. It’s like staring into a mirror that is in front of you while another mirror stares back behind you; infinity at its worst. Trauma indelibly has its beginnings. But trauma seldom meets an end. And then the drinking begins. You went from 0-50 in a second, and somehow, you need more. Just to catch a buzz, you say. Just a drizzle of a buzz to dim down the trauma. But then you need more, and now you’re long past buzz. It’s to pillow the blow, you say, to try and find shade from those regrets that rise and sit like an afternoon sun, stuck in time. You need more. But just a bit.
If a single ounce of drunkenness emanates from your skin, then your best friend—love of your life—best thing to happen to you—will walk and leave you as a shadow in her life. She will leave. That’s on the line. So get your mind together. Stop crutching on nonsense. Hone your sights on anything but yourself and shut the fuck up. The only remnant left behind will be your sorrow, silent and unseen to all but you. Worthless and irrelevant to all but you.
And where does it come from, this trauma? It’s not necessarily a moment or singular regret. Those things gathered and deliquesced into one bottomless puddle long ago. Now it’s just a faceless pain, an entity that comes from all corners. It climbs and sits there, never leaving and ever-growing. So now, you need another drink. And one more won’t hurt. It’s just one. You’ll work it off before you go home. How about a happy ending? Not a sad and pathetic display of directionless discourse between all your egos. Lose it. Drop it. Give it up. But it’s just one drink… just one more. And that won’t hurt. It just softens the ridge. Plus, your strength is not in how you not drink; it’s in how you drink. Drink correctly, whatever in God’s name that means. Play some music. Confirm your manhood. Run away from vulnerability and arrive at value. It’s just one drink. Be a man.
Now, your wife—your best friend—the love of your life—needs you. Now trauma has her in its sight. More than ever, in fact. And she is at work, pulling blood from veins as her own boils and bubbles with trauma. And you’re delivering groceries, hauling plastic bags full of empty worth. How embarrassing. You need a drink to cope, and after all, it’s just one more. You’ll be fine. Now you’re one over one too many. It’ll be the last drink, you promise. It’s just a lullaby to rock yourself back to sanity. But that’s a lie. The trauma hid so well in your mind has now painted your face, eyes, and speech with chaos, splattered. It has risen to conspicuousness. And now you’re too drunk to drive. And now you’re stuck in this god-forsaken Safeway parking lot. Just like the trauma that you’ve temporarily put on mute, your stomach burns, and rising like the trauma you tried to drown with drink, the bile climbs, a flame pulling its way up your chest. It sits and you mumble a belch, low and rumbling and shaking like your head. You swing your driver door open, and a sorry-ass vomit slips out, splashing down on the cracked asphalt that bathes in the half-moon’s glow. Blood sits dark and thick and mute. You slam the door shut, hoping no one saw. Your eyes meet their reflection in the rear-view mirror, and they’re glassy and as red as the spectacle just outside the driver’s door. It’s time to go home. You know hell awaits you there, just like the trauma waiting for you in the morning. But you know you’ll be fine, just fine. Because before you get home, you’ll buy another drink.
Just one more, you promise.
Your wife won’t notice.
And if she does,
you can just blame it on trauma. // TRAVIS KNIGHT
Find more of Travis’ stuff at knight-writes.com
