This trajectory of trauma hit its peak in January 2022. An ill-informed rocket ship that took flight against my will, needing so many prescribed pills this was not a thrill and I didn’t try to kill myself yet myself went missing because this body would shake and shake and shake unlike a

joyous dog shaking off perhaps god-sent raindrops (who went to, she said, dog heaven) as I was spent. I spent countless hours writing so meticulously and particularly became fascinated with naked women, breasts as an escape because I felt like I was arrested, thrown into treatment centers for multiple rounds.

 

This self, composed of multitudes of identities, but the identity of humanity went out the window while I would always lock my window whereas she didn’t—she let the air flow, the ocean breeze only one story yet that center had two stories, and a balcony. Stories upon stories. Voices upon voices. Moans upon moans. Mental breakdowns. Me stuck there like a scared child at the age of five, but really close to thirty trying not to die afraid of rolling the dice.

 

And instead, I burned up the cards that I was dealt and with the ashes made a little pile. I planted not a miniature lemon tree, but instead let the wind take it away like ill-informed butterflies not defined by past histories. It is no mystery why, the why. Even though this confusion lingered much longer than the flash of lightning like a camera that only a God could use. Yet God wouldn’t allow this magnitude of suffering so who took the shot? Made the flash? As I splashed in the waves that were kissing the shoreline, I who never kissed, but I made a wish.

As I danced and as I pranced as the sun set going downwards as if taking a nap, and in fact

was still burning bright like the embers inside my spirit never extinguished. I never relinquished this hope that life is indeed worth living, and in I turned I didn’t bother to raise my hand to say goodbye to two thousand twenty two, because I knew I surpassed the odds in this even year, yes, we will get you through and out of it; never forget.

 

Falco’s third poetry book: Chronicles of Cosmic Chaos: In The Fourth Dimension is forthcoming later this year, and she is the author of Farewell Clay Dove, and of her award-winning chapbook: The Immortal Sunflower all published by UnCollected Press. She is the winner of the Mirabai Prize for Poetry, and she graduated magna cum laude along with the highest honors in the Literature Department from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her Bachelor of Arts degree is in intensive literature with a creative writing concentration in poetry. In addition, she has over 40 individual poems published in various literary journals, and magazines. Now Sophia is in a highly regarded Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Program for Poetry along with carrying out a Teaching Fellowship. She is on her way to make her dream job become a reality to be a Professor of Poetry.

Learn more about Sophia—who is a faithful poet since she finds poetry essential to her understanding of the universe—and find more of her writing on: https://www.sophiafalco.com/