Trauma As Sheep by Christian Ward
This poem explores how a traumatic experience can be tamed through reaching out to mental health professionals, helping the speaker in the poem achieve a kind of comfort and peace.
Trauma invaded my sleep
like a herd of unwanted sheep,
keen to graze on every second:
those hospital beds, that cancer,
nurses waking for blood at 2am
like songbirds confused by uncertain
seasons. Prescribed pills, which tasted
like second-hand bathwater,
made me as dizzy as a swinging
chandelier. I sought refuge under
snow-soft duvet covers. Blinds down.
Microwave meals tumbled like dominoes.
The sheep persisted. Pricked their ears
at whatever acreage of sleep might remain.
Gradually, I learnt to understand my experiences
by talking it out. Turned the trauma sheep
into balloons escaping into the upper reaches
of the atmosphere. I close my eyes
and find comfort in my open fields of sleep,
whatever might lurk beyond the horizon
and those yet to come