I Hate it Here

 It’s been two years tonight since the worst moment of my life. 

While my life has been full of trauma and chaos, not a single moment prepared me for the moment I got the call my son had been shot or the hours I spent thinking he was dead due to news reports and a hospital’s failures. Not a moment prepared me for the panic that sits in my everyday. 

People tell me to be grateful he made it, and I am. But now I know. Now I know on the most ordinary of days, in the safest of places, my babies can be taken from me. I am also always scared. My phone never rings without my heart skipping a beat. I never see an ambulance or fire truck or flashing lights and stay calm. I have yet to sleep through the night. I carry a rage over my pedophile ex husband and his wife’s actions, or lack thereof, that scares me. I often choose drunk over panic. I’m heavy and have lost many who could not carry the weight. I have walked away from those who could in guilt of my presence. I don’t know where to go from here. 

I’ve always been able to take broken things or moments and make something beautiful. But this, all of it, it’s something that should not exist. It is poison. Its very presence causes harm. And I can’t make it go away. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to exhaustion. I hate it here.