poem “Visions were Justified”, a poem about how imagining things friendly from home when going through a trauma can actually be good for you, to help keep you sane, By Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

[the Writing of Kuypers] [JanetKuypers.com] [Bio] [Poems] [Prose]

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems Visions were Justified, Excuses for Skipping Work and Earth was Crying at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s 3/11/16 (from a Canon Power Shot).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems Visions were Justified, Excuses for Skipping Work and Earth was Crying at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s 3/11/16 (from a Nikon CooPix S7000).

Visions were Justified
Janet Kuypers
3/5/16
Recently heard a therapist process
the story of a man
who had just survived a trauma.
He explained to the therapist
that he kept seeing himself
back home and safe,
and he would bounce back and forth
between that vision
and his real life trauma,
where people restrained him.
And the therapist explained
to the man
that this was perfectly natural;
that during his recovery
he latched on to what he knew,
to recent events in his life,
and that is what kept him sane
when going through his ordeal.
Now, I only explained my story
to one person once,
about how I coped
with what I went though
after being detained
for weeks against my will.
You see, I had recently
visited a friend a few times
before my trauma began,
and while they had me restrained
and I had no one to talk to,
so I imagined the stranger
who was in the room with me,
I imagined this stranger was this friend,
this friend that I had just recently seen,
and I imagined talking with him
so I didn’t feel so alone.
I told this to one person.
And they thought I was crazy.
How irrational of me.
This is what I get
for telling people what I go through.
Because looking back
it know it was my way to stay sane.
It didn’t hurt anyone,
and it helped me heal.
I knew what was right
and what was wrong...
And it’s nice to hear
a therapist
somewhere say
that what I did was natural.
It was what I needed to do.

my hand to an anim of jkchair