​Counting

How many words do you know?
How many traumas do you have?
Draw a map.

I am on the bed, the lights are off, someone stronger is moving my body, someone stronger is going into my body. How many bodies are in the room? How many bodies are in my body? More than one.

Count the number of times you were in the hospital
Count the number of times you were in the police station
Draw a map.

Trauma is stored in a non-verbal part of the brain
Yet I try to understand it with language-
Grasping to the only logic I know,
I could never do math-
Counting, numbers
Language is all I have.
Count the number of words you know.
My body is a word now.

It’s hard to count the number of times it’s happened. It’s hard to count the number of things that have happened. I am gasping for air and things are being thrown. I stick my head out the window like it will help. I try to count the crosses in the chain link fence in the park across the street to the left of my apartment but a bottle hits my head.

The number of words you know by the time you are five
Predict your level of success,
They said.
What are the levels of success?
I said.
Draw a map.

It looks like a system not a map.

I was always saying, “what?” The teachers tested my hearing, later they said, “maladaptive daydreaming.” “Why does it take her so long to read?” It’s processing that takes a while, but I didn’t know that word.

How do you count words?
It’s a system not a map.

I try to tell you stories of myself but they don’t make sense

I always have to explain my vagueness,
It’s metaphorical- easier to access things this way
It’s softer-
Easier to access things this way.

Count the number of times you asked me to specify
Count the number of times they asked me to specify,
Doctor, policeman, judge, friend, lover, parent
Draw a map

Languages are different in the hospital, the police station
Count the number of words you know
Count the number of ways you know how to express what happened
Is it legal, medical, academic?
Count the number of times it felt the opposite of a feeling
Count the number of times it was an explanation
Draw a map.

Count the number of systems,
the words that become a part of them
Count them
Count the number of words
Count the number of times you lost track of your count