I Can’t Look Forward – By Charlotte Farhan

I Can’t Look Forward

By Charlotte Farhan

In memories I continue to relive,
not able to endure this universes reality,
my amygdala is highly combative,
the fragmented pieces falling from my dead family tree.

Infected fear filled eyes, like sores from the past,
in the depths of hell, everyone is deranged,
truth sees me branded as an iconoclast,
putrid and filthy I’m seen as the estranged.

The dysfunction of my mind continues to breed,
my hippocampus withering as neurons disintegrate,
dissociated in this mad world of misdeeds,
my prefrontal cortex had no time to decontaminate,

My illness is physical which you can’t see,
I have been rearranged internally,
this sickness inside, a screaming apogee,
with my outward mask fixed eternally.

Eyes alert and looking to the past,
like a bête noire lost with nowhere to go,
the trigger is pulled with a loud blast,
night terrors and flashbacks are the ammo.

We are not all soldiers of war back from global battle,
many of us suffer without being part of the bloodshed,
instead our bodies have been used as personal chattel,
We knew our survival would not cause for medals or tears shed.

This painting and poem reflects the physical and emotional struggles of having Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and how the world reserves compassion for soldiers of war who have this illness but do not extend the same benevolence to victims of sexual violence and rape, who are a larger number of affected people.

I am one of these survivors; using my art, poetry and writing to raise awareness of the aftermath from being abused, assaulted and raped. As well as to help prevent these acts from continuing and to explain how rape culture in part of the every day fabric of life, which goes unnoticed, but is highly dangerous to us as a global community.

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