When the Trauma-box Opens

A Visceral Weird Exploration of Explosive Catharsis

Spooky season is upon us. Witches, monsters, ghouls. But nothing scarier than the little box of personal trauma locked up in our minds.

We all have it. At least I did. For a long time, I kept it tightly shut under a heavy lid. Childhood stuff. Adolescent stuff. Adulthood stuff. All mixed in and packed together.

No need to look at it, deal with it, feel it.

But we all know what happens to iron-clad boxes, filled and topped beyond capacity. We know that the laws of pressure and velocity, time and space, distance and compression also apply to fictitious constructions of psychological manifestation.

No-one is immune. No-one.

So when the trauma-box opens, what really happens? A barely edited poem with many grave squishy crammed metaphors.

When the trauma box opens
Everything explodes
Contents come out, flying-
Crawling screaming crying
No holding back, no holding in
I watch it all unravelling

The box came with a warning
Don’t expect a soft unwrapping
Pretty lid, politely dropping
Cardboard, duct tapes ripped
Shreds of Styrofoam stripped
bubble-wrap burst, ribbons all crushed
name-tags turned, shiny glitter burnt 
Piles of silent hurt, buried emotional dirt
puked out in a single outburst 
A topless smoothie, spilling
Green goo all over the ceiling
That spinach-avocado feeling 
They said it would be healing 
(Green) Rivers on the walls, drop!
(Green) Puddles on the floor, flop!
A sea of regret, overflowing

The box isn’t just a box
It is an art archive- of
film-in-mime-in-interpretive dance
immersive theatre on graffiti painting 
scooshed up in a tiny recording.  
It’s pastry swooshed with milkshake, 
smashed into deep-fried cheese cake
No separation of whites and colours 
It’s a splash of holi gone unholily wrong
A dash of canon from a paintball 
A lash of a giant wrecking ball 
Like Mother’s wrath, or Mumbai in July 
Oh! the trauma box is full of Mumbais in July!

Local train crammed, ladies first class, 
Dupattas, sarees, front-worn backpacks 
Armoured self-defence- scratchy jeans, long shirts
No room for dress-up, here. No skirts!
Layers and hordes, entangled together
Wool with silk, cotton on polyester 
Who will add in the balls of camphor?
Romance packed in with sci-fi and horror
A worm gnaws at the yellowing paper 
Old cassettes and CDs, I-tunes unscrambled
No pencil to detangle this musical garfunkle

I’d say it was packed like a tin of sardines
But that metaphor is colonial inheritance 
Neat, schooled, no personal significance
Straight from the world of Famous five adventures
My trauma box is nothing like Famous five adventures
No treasure islands, no camping by the river
No picnic basket with scones and ginger beer
My box is a school-bag, weighed in text-books 
Two tiffin bags and reluctant sports shoes 
And underneath it all, a book of poems- 
Mine. 
To be read only in private stealth
when all unravels, I will find it 
Nestled at the bottom. In perfect health. 

I would say, hope you enjoyed the poem. Please tell me about your trauma-box.

But I hope you didn’t. And please don’t.

And if you must open yours, do so safely and gently. Have a space-holder present. Give many content warnings. And of course, make some poetry out of it :) :)

Much Love X

Supriya