Oxytocin Withdrawal

“Is it okay if I touch you here?”

He forgot to ask.

And his light touch on my hip was a thousand hands wrapped around my neck, choking off my breath, causing

a kind of hate/fear/ambivalence saliva.

But he is safe, right?

I do not tell him not to touch me. I say nothing at all. I paint a hand on his thigh.

I tell the spirit world not to send me these men.

The spirit world answers, “Use your voice” and keeps sending me batters.

Where did I learn that a touch could be threatening?

Why is my skin-suit so tense?

Where can I go so as not to starve from Oxytocin deficiency?

And there it comes again. Distraction. Keep looking left because

the hand comes from the right.

A tight-fist, or an open hand.

But do not bite the hand that feeds you.

Obey, like the dog you are.

Where did you learn that a touch could be threatening?

Why are you so jumpy in your skin-suit?

Over-identification with the flesh results

in the fear of death.

What makes you over-identify with your flesh, skin-suit?

Has anyone ever given you reason to believe that they want to use you,

to proclaim loudly to the world that you are their property?

Have you ever destroyed yourself to  punish another?

Where did we learn that a touch could be threatening?

And the little space we may have carved from the shit

we had to begin with is filled with only love.

And you thrash in it, and you whine. And you spit. And you rip it.

And yet,

you are received. And the safety of knowing nobody wants to ever see you hurt

puts a bookmark in the story of trauma running through your brain.

You have space to see that you aren’t crazy.

That your reactions are appropriate.

That while perhaps you have further to go,

you have enough space to figure out how to help you calm down,

how to help you move through space and take others with in style.

How to exist purely to enjoy other human beings, and the

way they move through space, while you are busy being silent,

dense and tired.

And for some reason, after a certain length of time, when

others tell you they love you and they appreciate you

in the million and one different ways,

you will believe them.

 

And you will promise next time, to use your voice to say whatever needs to be said. And trust that you will be received