Transparent and Legible

“You were broken so
You have broken free
Now you see right through
The king's new clothing”

- Maynard, The Underwhelming

Your trauma gives you away.
The more you deny and hide it,
the more evident it is.
Your shame, your fear, your insecurity are written on your every move.
The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
I know you because I've been you.

It's painfully obvious,
How much you accept reality,
How much you're living in a fantasy.
Your unmet needs are bleeding in between the lines of the stories you choose to tell.
Your attachment style announces itself in your voice before you finish the first sentence.

The way you hesitate when asked a direct question.
The way you smile to indicate that you're harmless.
The way you lie when you say you're the kind of person who.
The way you withdraw when faced with authenticity.
The way you relax when you can play a role.
The resentment that builds behind your warmth.
The jokes you find funny.

Your trauma speaks through the clothes you wear.
The way you structure your sentences.
The things you claim credit for.
The micro facial expressions of comfort or fear.
The way you try to control what people think of you.

What you feel entitled to.
What you do when you think no one is watching.
The way you act when you think you're right and the other is wrong.
The way you accept help, care and affection.
What you complain about.
Your urgency to fill the emptiness.

Your care for others and yourself is obvious.
Your lack of self awareness is written all over your body.
I don't need to know your story.
I just need to see how capable you are at staying present.

When you stop playing a role.
When you step away from automatic reactions.
When you stop being lost in your head with your own reactivity.
When you stop controlling the narrative.
You realize how transparent and fragile everyone is.

Victims make more victims.
Survivors get punished again.
You attract the same kind of people who hurt you before.
Your story keeps repeating until you stop resisting.

The pain gets amplified until you stay with it to learn what it has to teach you.
Your fears expand when you run from them until they haunt you behind every corner.
The more you blame, the more there is to blame