Personal Reflection

Addiction to Trauma

Been wanting to write and chronicle my time at Dartmouth.
4 years. 4 years. 4 fucking years.
I have been wanting to write about the traumas
The absorption of traumas, exhaustion, depression, addictions.
Addictions.
Much of me wonders if I am addicted to the trauma. Addicted to the pain.
I was pretty broken before Dartmouth.
Numbers, ranks, external awards have kept me whole.
But Dartmouth, that was not possible.
I was not prepared for that place.
So why would I ever think that I am prepared
To dig up the tombs.
Dig up the bones.
Catch the souls that play tag
As they revolve around my heart;
Taking turns to numb me
To overwhelm me.
To destroy me.
I am not sure if I would ever be ready
To speak about the hollowness of my womb.
Listen to the clotting of my blood
When I feel the word
Dartmouth.
I cannot speak of my Dartmouth experience.
Because it feels like I am playing with machetes
Playing with grenades.
Playing with nooses.
To think about the experience of Dartmouth
Is to be addicted to the trauma.
As a person,
Who has only welcomed my blackness for the past four years
And her womanhood for the past two.
To speak to my experience of Dartmouth.
Is to expose my addiction to my trauma.
To love on that fact that going numb about those years at Dartmouth
Feels like the cuddling against moonlight and dew skies.
When I stood on that stage and spoke.
I was not up there.
Trauma was.
And Dartmouth trauma, may have equipped me with tools that have gotten me through post Dartmouth
While also reminding me that
I don’t know how to experience joy.
Because I am addicted to trauma.

 Nikkita McPherson