My jumping off point for this poem was a quote from ‘Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing‘ by Cixous (1994). ‘We spend our lives not seeing what we saw.’

heart ruptures

released from its anchor

I close my eyes

to banish the vision

exorcise the demons

but they hold fast

to my being

infiltrating my thoughts

my dreams

evert waking moment

I long to go back

to erase those moments

from my life

from my world

from history

what might my life had been

had I not been there that day?

how would I exist without these shackles?

would I realise my freedom?

would I cherish it?

would I instead be shackled by something other?

we cannot know our other story

the one that might have been

we have only this life