As we approach the second inauguration of Tan Dumplord, I feel rather like the heroine tied to the tracks in an old melodrama, watching the slow inexorable approach of the train. I’m not alone in having a lot of PTSD reactions to the narcissist-in-chief. Trauma therapist and singer-songwriter Rythea Lee wrote this poem in her e-newsletter, which she’s kindly allowed me to reprint here.

I Blamed Myself for the Election

I blamed myself for the results of the election. I know that’s insane. But it’s true.
In the face of a tsunami of horror, my whole body blamed itself.
That’s what I also did when I couldn’t hold off the weight of my father’s violence.
I blamed myself for having been born into it,
I must have done something wrong.

I blamed myself for other children getting hurt, for how could I be so powerless?
I should have kept them safe. I could have. I wanted to.
I tried and failed.
I must have done something wrong.

And now every trigger is here. The man and the hurting souls.
It looks so similar to my past.
All I knew to do was blame myself. That was my best strategy,
I must have done something wrong.

I can see now that it’s not really gonna work.
Hating on myself, or everyone else, isn’t really efficient.
It was a good idea at the time because back then, at least I could hope to be better.
Hope to change something inside me that might make them stop,
I eviscerated every corner of my heart to be better for them.
And IT NEVER WORKED.
They abused me anyway.
I must have done something wrong.

The sun rises today like the sweet song of a mother.
Calling me into a new paradigm where fighting the system
no longer requires me to harm myself.
Lifeforce courses through my cells with a river of determination.
Love wants its way with me.

Love wants to remind me that I never broke
and I’m certainly not going to break now.
Love is showing me the song of sanity that connects me to others
who are singing the same song.
We don’t have to try to know the song, it has always been playing.
We don’t have to force this song, because even when we were utterly alone,
the song played inside our bodies.
We never forgot the song. We are the song.

And now, as the world cries in its deepest pain, it is the clarity of love, not
shame, that guides me forward, putting me to work to the beat of that song.
In knowing who I am right now, I can trust that within me, within so many of us,
something has gone incredibly right.