28.03.21: The Trauma of Writing

Vulnerability is a trait we all strive for in our art, but truly achieving it comes at a price. What is the cost of capturing an honest reflection of who we are, and is it worth it in the end?

some days, poetry is the stitches.
others, it’s the wound.

This short piece appears in my upcoming book, Murmuration. The process of writing that book, along with my recent chapbook, was incredibly difficult. I think, in part, because I’m learning to be completely honest with myself in my writing - to address the deepest parts of me I’ve always tried to ignore.

Since finishing the manuscript, my mind has repeatedly come back to this poem. I think, because I worried that I may not be ready to address every open wound. I guess my question has become, does the writing come with a trauma of its own?

There’s no question that writing can have a therapeutic benefit, and it’s been an important part of my own healing journey. There are numerous studies and research papers that show writing about trauma to be beneficial, reducing emotional pressure and allowing people to see their experiences from a new perspective.

But reliving some of the experiences I’ve written about has not been easy.

Rediscovering the emotions linked to traumatic experiences was a brutal process that, in some cases, left me unsettled for a long time. If I’m honest, there were several moments where I felt an urge to stop; even to quit writing altogether. The writing had become its own kind of trauma, and it took its own kind of recovery.

In my experience, the emotions elicited were complex, sometimes confusing and often extremely hard to deal with. Not only are you trying to process the memory of the original experience, but the act of remembering seemed to bring a new kind of pain.

Suddenly there are feelings of guilt, shame, anger and a raft of secondary emotions that were not present before, and each of these needs to be processed; accepted; understood.

In the weeks after finishing The Things We Leave Behind, I wrote a poem about the trauma this writing process left me with. I haven’t shared this poem previously, but I think it’s important to share it here:

Let Me Show You What I Know About Time

i.

I swear there are still
parts of me that haven’t

finished dying,

and to hurt
is only an act

of remembering.

ii.

they wear the same expression
in every memory I have,

which is another way of saying

that I’m starting to forget
what they look like.

iii.

the next part is softer
than I expected.

what I mean is,
depression is a skilled butcher;

every whetted edge
slipped quietly

between the ribs.

—-

I truly believe that writing holds a unique relationship with trauma, and attempting to process it through poetry (or perhaps, any kind of art) can be a harrowing and difficult experience.

For me, recovering from writing the last two books has taken months, and I still haven’t quite come to terms with some of the things I’ve written. But, the truth is, I would go through all of it again.

I will go through all of it again.

The process of truly vulnerable writing takes something from you, I have no doubt about that. But in the end, it gives something back, too.

I am sleeping better than I have done for years, I feel closer to my parents (in fact, to every member of my family), and I felt an empowerment in placing my nose to the wolves and insisting on survival. The truth is I am more comfortable with my memories than I was before, even when they ache. I can talk about my anxiety, my childhood, my fear, in a way I wouldn’t have been able to before writing both of these books.

And then there’s the feedback. Murmuration won’t be out into the world until October, but the messages I’ve gotten about The Things We Leave Behind have brought me to tears on more than one occasion.

Knowing that you have helped others deal with their own pain is the kind of meaning I have searched for my whole life. It makes every minute of writing worth going through - it makes the trauma itself, worth going through.

I am becoming someone I am almost proud to be, and that is entirely down to the community and the audience I have found.

There is a trauma in writing, but I think it is something I am privileged to bear.

Every word I write will always belong to you.

Yours,

Blake

—-

If you’d like to read The Things We Leave Behind, you can pick it up now on my website.

Murmuration is released on October 5th, 2021, through Central Avenue Publishing. It will be available in shops worldwide.