Everyone starts with bucket filled with happiness.

For some, the bucket is made of glass;

Others might have a bucket of steel,

Or perhaps even a bucket of paper.

It doesn't really matter what your bucket is made of,

What matters is what happens when you endure traumatic experiences.

Trauma has many forms, but it does the same thing no matter what it is:

It damages your bucket,

Leaving holes that cause all the happiness that you started with

To drip, drip, drip away into emptiness.

Each type of trauma targets a specific region of the bucket.

Physical trauma such as abuse or sexual assault is like a gunshot-

It will puncture the bucket no matter what, causing a lot of damage.

Emotional trauma is more like a needle-

There's more nuance to it.

For a bucket of steel or glass, it just grazes the surface; you would need repeated instances to puncture the bucket.

For a bucket of paper, it easily pierces through and the happiness drains away.

Luckily, you can refill your bucket by doing the things that make you happy,

But you need to fix the damage if you want to keep it inside.

I would say that I have a bucket of glass.

I'm fortunate enough to have never experienced any physical trauma,

Unfortunate enough to have experienced a lot of emotional trauma.

Small instances do little to affect my bucket,

Especially when they are spread out across the different regions of family and relationships.

It scratches the surface, but I could've kept the happiness inside.

But there's a unique feature about glass:

When you do enough damage, it doesn't just make a hole;

First it cracks,

Then it shatters.

There's not just one instance in my life that made the biggest 'hole';

It was a series of traumatic experiences that I've gone through that built up.

Hairline fractures ran throughout my bucket,

Slowly leaking out happiness

Until my bucket couldn't take anymore and broke.

I didn't know how to fix my bucket, I couldn't even figure out where the cracks were

Or where they came from.

How could I have known when my breaking point would come?

It came about a year ago, and I've felt emptiness ever since.

There are fleeting moments of happiness, but until I repair the damage, it won't stay.

How do you fix a shattered bucket?

I've figured out that you first need to find the pieces,

Which is what I've been trying to do ever since.

But it's difficult when I can't remember what shards I'm even missing.

It's difficult when I find a piece, but then there's more emotional trauma

That breaks it down even more.

All I can do is keep searching for those pieces,

And try putting them back together.

Even then, my bucket will be more fragile,

It will still leak out happiness.

But at least I'll finally be complete again.

It started back in the cemetery.

I used to call it a grave yard

But the man there gave me a sour eye.

I think I'll still call it a grave yard when I'm somewhere else

If I remember to.

There wasn't a lot that I remembered that day,

Just walking past stone after stone,

I don't remember any of the names,

Because I started to remember other things,

Things that were not mine to remember,

And somehow were.

There was a fight,

A battle.

Guns and dirt and grenades

And blood.

I tried not to remember the blood

But there it was.

And there was screaming,

So much screaming.

I always saw the worst ones,

Ones who came to the tent with missing limbs.

Some of the men were brave,

But it was always worse when they were screaming.

My hands could feel the cloth I used,

Bandaging, making splints, tourniquets,

The bottles of disinfectant,

The needles to make them sleep.

I blinked,

And suddenly there was a cloud on the hill.

A nurse in white was there.

She was my mother,

But she wasn't.

She just beckoned to me.

I can't, I thought,

I have to tend to them.

"Marcus!" she said

And the memories faded.

I was back in the cemetery.

"Come on, it's time to go!"

"You shouldn't shout,"

I said under my breath.

"What? Come on, baby, let's go.

"What were you doing out there so long?"

"Just remembering," I said.

She was quiet for a minute.

"Really? Remembering what?"

I was quiet for a minute.

"I don't know."

I think I am sad.

Sad to fly, to experience, to know

The traveler —

Sad, to be free?

And even sadder

When sitting alongside peace

An unfamiliar calm

Kundera said:

The unbearable lightness of being —

And I understand.

When the weight of the world

The burden, the pain, the obstacles

The bills, the kids, the hustle —

Those heavy crashing waves of darkness

Beat against your chest

One after another —

That man. The many men.

Heartbreak, loss, grief

The unknown, and nothing is promised —

The girth of it. The literal and

Physical and mental heaviness of it

Freedom is fleeting.

The anchor eventually becomes

Your comfort

Your stability.

A weight that keeps you grounded

Despair cries, and so do you

Loud and fierce but beaten

Into submission, you oblige

You conform and crawl beneath

The barrel of joy long hollow

Steel upon sulfur upon pewter dreams

Gone stifled and chorused

In a blue heat of arrest

But then one day —

You are light like dawn

Almost empty, and ascending

And floating above endlessly

The expectation of boundary gone wild

And you gasp

Am I alone?

Can I go here, or there —

Yes.

Nothing and no one is detaining you

The noose of submission has been tethered

And the sadness you feel for

Your captor gone romantic is perverse

But the reality is freedom pounding light

So light that your fist penetrates the wall

Fallen in Berlin style

And nothing is real

Just fabricated borders collapsing

And it is sad.

It is a dichotomy of arriving and —

Am I lost.

Used by the pillars of angst

Who am I now

Free?

Weeping am I behind a pink moon

A sigh so loud that no one looks

I am free.

And perhaps I am afraid of

How far I will fall

With no shackles to stop me.

I've been simmering on this; making my point might be like driving a car in stick shift - I don't know it. I only strive to be the best writer I can be while sharing my story; if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does Prose still have the capacity to hold me?

Coping can look like crying; some might say I do that into the keys - the click of my typing like little tears getting bigger and bigger, a la Alice in Wonderland. Fergie said, "Big girls don't cry", (almost too simple, like a lullaby). If you don't know who that is, it's probably because my age bracket was born at the tail end of the twentieth century. And that's okay, and that's why we're here - to share different perspectives, holding the truth, making the complex clear.

I know I lack drive, that I lack confidence. It's not lost on me that I'm writing into the internet, little nothings that might make someone say oh, me too, or sometimes, that's not the way of the world, sweet girl.

I'm writing for myself, first and foremost, above everything. My nieces play with teddy bears and flower petals, I play with words and feelings. I take screenshots and share the evidence. Perhaps that makes me vain, but isn't that the world we're living in?

Do I make excuses? Absolutely. That's the world we're living in, too. That could just be my generation though - whining about everything. Millennials, am I right? Or maybe I got lost somewhere along the production line. I'm missing a tooth, or a toe. Or maybe just the ability to tell my woes without sounding morose.

I promise that I'm trying not to whine, to complain bitterly about things I have the capacity to change.

I promise I read your message, and if this isn't even close to what you meant, I apologize - sometimes I miss the point entirely.

I wish the best for you, too - the whole world aligns when we write and hold each other up; supporting other artists is what this is all about.

And with that, I sign off, and please remember - I am just a girl, trying to type out what hurts. What my personality lacks, my keyboard pounces like a cat, and attacks. But we're all friends here, we're all trying our best and that's what I love about this website.

Beneath summer sky

in my yard, squirrels frolic,

sparrows search for seed.

At times, a sudden silence,

save the rustle of oak leaves,

but creatures, none, as

the shadow of a falcon

glides across green grass.

"I was you in a previous life," Hunter said--casually, matter-of-factly, even incidentally as he stacked the Lego blocks. I blew it off, and we finished the Lego truck.

"Why do we have to build?" he asked.

"We don't," I answered. "But it's how we live. We keep making things better and bigger."

"Oh," he replied. Five-year-olds typically accept the first answer that is delivered in a serious tone of good faith.

I went to the kitchen to help with the dishes when she, just as casually, said, "Hunter said he was you in a previous life."

"I know," I said. "He told me that, too."

"You don't find that weird?"

"He's five. File it away with the unicorns he's obsessed with."

"I suppose," she said, "but, still, it's strange. How he knows things."

"Like what?"

"Like how you used to sell Cutco knives in college, before you met me."

"That is strange. Anything else?"

"Yea, plenty."

"Really?"

"How your mother was killed by a drunk driver; how you had a drug problem that got you fired from your first job. Things like that."

"Wow. Weird. He probably just heard us talking."

"I don't think so. I don't think he heard us talking about how I had to prop up my pelvis after sex because that's what the doctor said. And it worked, and we had him."

"Now you're scaring me."

"I think most parents have stories like this, don't they?" she asked.

"No. Not like this," I replied. I was scared.

Hunter was watching Paw Patrol in the other room. I called him into the kitchen, and he came running. We had forgotten his ice cream and he must have figured on that. My wife handed him his treat.

"Hunter," I said. "You were me?"

"Yea," he said.

"Before?"

"Before I was born, but now, too."

"You must mean someone from a long time ago," my wife clarified.

"No," he said, "from right now."

"I don't get it," I admitted. "How can that be? I'm here now, and you say you lived a previous life?"

"Yes, Daddy; I was you."

"How long were you me?"

"Till you died," he answered.

"When was that?" I asked.

"Not for a while," Hunter replied. "Not till September 5, 2042."

We were both dumbstruck.

"But don't worry, Daddy," he answered. You'll just be me. Bigger and better? It's how we live, right?"

Poets.

Where others are tortured

by sleeplessness

We turn torment into art form

And lay into it tooth and nail

With all the entrails

Hanging loose

So juices spill, rolling down

The crevasse...

Blotted up from the chin

onto a diner serviette and

repressed in print...

The pain still fresh expressed

like from a grinding mill

where sand is powdered

into dream...

Sweet is our profession

With the only hand on the call

Box being as transparent as a

Vesper

As it hovers over a heart

In the breaking darkness of dawn

When it has just freshly been Forgiven...

Languid in our vision, as cool

And calm as palm fronds

Swaying as the

Breeze exudes

The breath,

The word becoming new life

As dead sheets are turned...

And the corners are tucked

5/4/24

Bunny Villaire

& Mavia Villaire

your feeble intentions

empty and brittle

like the latticework

of decaying leaves

I wait

through this fallow season

of the heart

I wait

for the memory of you

to at last

breakdown

into something

useful

Wake up to a hurricane in my gut, don't want to open my eyes, but there's no chance to sleep in as my never ending worries demand attention. My mind races against itself as if the track were a Möbius strip; a never ending loop, balanced between what I should and shouldn't have done, and ending back where I started in the first place. So much to do, so much left unsaid. Internet bill due... damn, I should've said that to her instead... more bills... I forgot to get milk last night... Dishes are still there... Electric bill overdue... Need to shower for work later... My God... So much to do. So much left to say.

Ok... laying here treading water in this stormy sea of thoughts doesn't help anything. I will end up drowning. If it's in the past, it can't be changed. Or, if it hasn't happened yet, worrying doesn't help anything. I rub and open my weary eyes, slowly sit up as my bed pressures me to lay back down. No. If I don't get up now, I never will.

Before I can stand up, I am greeted by my son, who's been watching me from the crack in the door to see if I was awake yet.

"Can you make me pancakes?" Of course my buddy.

"Can you transform my Bumblebee? I forgot how to do it." Ok, one minute please. Followed seconds later with, "Can you help me do this puzzle? It's my favorite." and continuing, "I broke my Optimus Prime, can you please glue it?" Yes. "I saw Lola (our cat) outside chasing the birdies." Cool, did she catch one? "Not yet ... Why do kitties like to chase birdies?" Before I can answer, "Can you make me waffles?" I thought you wanted pancakes??

Every sweet, high-pitched word that leaves his mouth are said with the most pure intentions. Pure unfiltered thoughts and curiosity. I remember when all I wanted was for him to talk, but this morning the words become increasingly piercing to my ears, as if I developed tinnitus overnight. I snap. "Dude! Can you please give me 5 minutes of silence!?"

I immediately flood with regret. Add it to the already overwhelming weight of anxiety. He's only 4, and the word 'silence' is not in his vocabulary yet. I'm a piece of shit.

"I'm sorry, Iroh. I didn't mean to yell at you. Daddy didn't sleep very good, and sometimes daddies just really like when it's quiet for a little bit."

Visually sad eyes respond "ok."

I can't stand myself. He was only waiting patiently for me to wake up so he could talk to his dad. I'm the worst father ever. The best thing I can do next is give him a big hug, kiss on the forehead, and start making his pancakes. Or was it waffles?

Throughout the next 15 minutes of cooking breakfast, my mind cycles through everything I need to do today. Big and small, each one accompanied by its own level of anxiety. Overwhelmed is an understatement as I stare blankly at the bubbly pancake batter on the griddle. I hear from the next room, "Don't burn the pancakes, Dad!" He's too damn smart. Thank you for reminding me buddy. Without his reminder, this batch would have most assuredly been burned. It's the strangest feeling being unable to move from so much going on inside my head.

We sit at the table and eat our breakfast. His questions keep on coming, and I slap a smile on my face and answer to the best of my abilities, simultaneously reminding him to eat his food, as that's my break between the queries. After we're done, I add the plates and utensils to the ever growing stack of dishes, I direct him to the couch and put on one of his favorite shows, "Bluey." I actually enjoy this show, I could watch it without him, and actually have. But I can't watch with him this time. I tell him I need to go outside for a little bit but I will be back. He acknowledges while eyes glued to the screen.

I step outside barefoot. The morning sunlight greets me warmly through the old cottonwood trees standing proudly to my left. Limbs still bare, but I see leaves beginning to bud. The air is still chilly with a slight breeze from the southwest, but it's the sunlight that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. I don't regret being in a t-shirt and boxers. No neighbors around anyway. First order of business is a deep breath. A heavy sigh of relief at the serenity of my front yard. A deep inhale of the smell of spring within the clean mountain air, and an even deeper exhale as if I'm releasing every last worry into the atmosphere.

I love this place. Birds happily singing in the treetops, like they were mocking my cat that she couldn't climb up to get them. I bet she could if she wanted to. She greets me as well, rubs her sun-warmed fur firmly along my legs, and I reach down to stroke her long, peach-colored fur in return. The sounds of her purring, the singing of the birds, the light breeze gliding through the bushes and trees harmoniously making its own original song. As calming as if 'Claire de Lune' were playing.

It's only me here in this present moment. No thoughts intruding on this pleasant solitude. My gaze directed towards the immeasurably big snow-covered mountains straight ahead, but my awareness is more of a floodlight in this moment. My eyes towards the front, but my vision only limited to the farthest extent of my peripheral.

To my left: Budding rose bushes, 15 200-year-old Cottonwoods and Willows, starlings changing branches every few seconds and twittering in conversation with the others. Lola exploring, the sun demanding attention through the trees, and the small town waking up in the distance.

To my right: More trees budding, these ones being younger, and shading my son's swing set. The closest house 2 miles away, blue and standing out from the distant hills and dark green forest. Clouds beginning to take shape against the deep blue sky, as if the owners of that house wanted to match the morning horizon.

All this within my present awareness. All this while staring forward at the mountains, with a clothesline in the foreground, holding the clothes I forgot to bring inside last night, and all the rolling hills and distant trees in between.

I can see every color without moving my head or eyes. Hues of red within our clothes and stained in the rocks and dirt scattered throughout. Orange is my cat, and the shirt hanging that my parents got me from Hawai'i last year. Yellow is the sun. Green is the grass and weeds growing back from winter, as well as the buds on the trees signaling spring. Blue is the sky and house to the west. Indigo is the sky surrounding the sun, a lighter hue than the darker horizon to my right. And Violet is harder to find, but it's there. From my view, the mountains appear violet where the snow doesn't touch. White, black, and grey everywhere else.

This is my peace. This is my happy place: The present moment within nature. When things get too overwhelming, I go outside, whether under the sun, the overcast, or the stars, and I breathe in the quiet serenity of nature that is unbothered by our worldly concerns.

I hear the door open behind me; my son asking what I'm doing. I calmly reply "I'm just getting my quiet time, buddy. I like to listen to the birds and watch Lola. I like to sit here with my feet in the dirt and listen."

Confused, he asks, "why you doing that?"

With a gentle smile I say, "One day you'll learn."

And feeling renewed, we head back inside to sit and watch some Bluey together.

I started writing a novel. I write roughly 800 words a day. It's slow going, and I have to wonder if the burn is too slow - if when we recount stories, ones we'd like to tell others, the candle actually burns in the other direction.

I have to wonder if my novel will get a one star review. If at the end of the day, the novel is for the audience, and not for the author themselves - but is surviving - writing prose that feeds some internal flame, living to see another day - for ourselves, or is it for others?

What if my novel never fills the void? Where does candle smoke go when there's no oxygen to even feed the flame; if a writer writes a novel and no one reads it, did it exist? Where does it go to make itself known?

This is already too abstract, and short, because I'm shot. I'm glad I'm embarking on this journey, but at what emotional cost? In the words of poet and writer Ocean Vuong, in his second-to-last Instagram post (because I'm not stalking him or anything), he says that he has completed his second novel - and that it took something from him that he may never get back.

Here's to leaving it all behind, to never getting back the pain, and the trauma, and instead making our stories of survival ones of hope, of our inner turmoil's flames going in one direction: skyward, where we can see the smoke spell out our dreams.