PTSD is a 4 Letter Word

PTSD is a 4 Letter Word

E. M. McConnell

Copyright © 2023 by Eryn McConnell

Cover Design by David Collins

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted by email, without permission in writing by the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.

This is a dark poetry collection and as such may have themes that are not suitable to all readers. For details of possible content and trigger warnings please refer to the Introduction

This collection is dedicated to all those who have wondered if they too have pieces missing. You don’t. You’re great just as you are.

Other Poetry Collections

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Love Lost And Found

Introduction

All the raw, ugly and angry stuff is right here. If my future self had told me I would be publishing this, I would have laughed at them.

I have written most of these over the last five or more years but have always felt they were too raw, too ugly, or too angry to be put in a poetry volume.

But poetry is not always meant to be beautiful, abstract and comforting. Sometimes it needs to be jagged and hard. Sometimes it needs to mean something. There are a lot of ugly subjects in this volume, and it will not suit everyone. I write about my past, and it is not pretty. Because of my past I live with C-PTSD, a brain disorder, dissociation, and sometimes depression. When I was young I also lived with disordered eating, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol.

These are my scars written on pages. Is it pretty? No. But it is true. And perhaps it might bring you something too, to read this. I survived it. You probably survived it too. Or you will survive it, if you are living it now.

This is a dark collection of poetry. There are the following content warnings:

Assault

Sexual Assault

Mental Health

Sexual harassment

Domestic violence

Emotional Abuse

Intrusive thoughts

Self harm

Eating Disorders

Contents

1. One Woman

2. Cracked Porcelain

3. Untitled

4. Eating. Disordered.

5. Can Cold Make A Statue?

6. White Threads Float

7. Hollow

8. Envy

9. A Worm In My Brain

10. Untethering

11. Untitled

12. Wearing The Wax

13. That’s Me

14. I’m Waiting For It

15. Crying

16. If

17. Still

18. Maul Me

19. Hypervigilance: A Super Power

20. Hallucination

21. Brain Bites

22. When It Isn’t

23. Face

24. I

25. Drowning

26. Common Denominator

27. The Psych Ward

28. A Refund

29. Those Days

30. Sleep is Safe, Right?

31. Replay By The Book

32. Sleeping

33. Mac

34. Do You

35. Becoming A Blank Page

36. You Drive Fast When You're Angry

37. Walking on Eggshells

38. Gaslighting

39. The Silencing Rule

40. Voiceless

41. I Do Not Understand

42. You Give Me A Rose

43. ‘You Learn That Being Lonely Is The Price For Being Safe’

44. Triggers

45. I Just Don’t Fit

46. Is It Me?

47. Kind Things People Say

48. Manspreader

49. Man On The Bus

50. Deluxe

51. My Own Nightmare

52. A Memory

53. I Wore A Wedding Ring

54. Patriarchy Chicken

55. Black Roses

56. Pain Takes Away Pain

57. I Wish For A Time Machine

58. Nourish

59. Depression

60. Putting Me Together

61. You

62. Poet Warriors

63. Is it Love