The Normal

Trauma wasn’t something that happened back then,
over there.
No.
It waited—patient, seething—
springing its trap the moment we arrived and learned
we are The Other.

The Other, desperate to know its origins,
watching, always watching, from the outside,
through the sanitized window of The Normal,
The Clean,
and
The Whole.

But The Normal—
has there been a smoother lie?
Has a greater wool ever been pulled
across The Beloved’s eyes?

May we, Beloveds,
at last,
peer into—
perhaps even fall into—
the wild, untamed adventure
where The Normal is simply the gift we were given.

This is The Normal. There is nothing more.
Dirt and soul and love.
The Other is the lie.

Raise up our sails,
catch her breeze.
The Great Belonging forms horizons.