They Cannot Find Me Here Book Extracts
the beast within
Trauma is a strange thing.
It sleeps in the darkness of one’s mind,
for a while it’s presence forgotten,
and then something causes it to awaken.
A smell,
a memory,
a spoken word.
Causing it to pry an eye open,
to stagger to its feet like a dragon in the bowels of the earth,
releasing all turmoil within.
And instead of trying to rid the beast
from our minds,
instead of wielding our swords
and slaying the beast within,
we sing it lullabies
in the form of addictions and denial,
praying desperately that it will stop its rampage
and settle back down
and close its eyes again,
so that we may continue to tiptoe around our mind once more.
PLOT'S CHANGE
You were a character in my story
but plots change
and the conclusion will not have you in it.
A FAÇADE
I just want you to look at me
and see the real me,
instead of the person I show you.
I just want you to see beneath this façade,
but there is a problem.
I am a paradox.
Because whilst I crave for you to see me,
I will spend every second doing whatever I can
to ensure that what lies beneath these walls,
never breaches the surface.
And so, I crave to be found,
and I crave to disappear.
SCARS
What suffering you must have endured,
to bear the scars of a broken soul.
THE UPRISING
There is an ember within us all
waiting for a breath of air
so that we may burst into flame
and set this world alight.
SALVATION
For much of my life
I felt like I did not fit inside my own skin,
that I was an alien inside my own body.
An imposter.
I tried so hard to cut away the pieces of myself that didn’t quite fit the image of who I thought I should be,
but the more I whittled away at myself
The more lost I became.
And then one day,
I found myself brushing my fingers over all the wounds I had inflicted upon myself,
shuddering
at the realisation of what I had done.
I was a flower trying to bloom
and I had spent so long
pruning myself away
until all that was left was thorns.
In horror, I settled the blades in front of me
and instead tended to myself with forgiveness,
love and compassion
and as the days turned into weeks
I washed myself begin to change,
transform,
into the person I was always supposed to be.
And for the first time since I could remember,
I found myself gazing at my reflection
spellbound by the person staring back at me,
unable to comprehend how I’d starved myself
and stunted myself
trying to find perfection
when perfection had been inside me
all along.