GROUP THERAPY

GROUP THERAPY

Group.
This room.
I want to explain;
I don't want you to feel
That my fright or my tears
Have anything at all to do with you:
Bear any vague relation to
What you say or what you do --
Or with whom you are.

Group.
This room
Echoes with fear and pain,
Tales of hurt and shame.
The walls shout back with years
Of misery and tears.
Mine. And hers. And yours.

Group.
This room.
The walls resound
With the cry of children.
They resonate with the screams
Of women trapped in young girl's dreams:
Lives turned upside down
For someone else's pleasure
Or by someone else's rage.

Group.
This room.
It hurts and terrifies me.
There is no space or time
For masks and evasions.
Here we deal in truths,
And there is no way to avoid
Being drawn into the pain.

Group.
This room.
How such concentrated terror
And so much remembered pain
Can heal, remains a mystery to me.
A mystery, but the fact remains.
Perhaps it is that with each story told
A little of the pain and fear
Lingers behind in the walls of this room.
No longer in our souls,
From which it was scoured clean.


From the "Journey from Darkness" section of my book, which deals with the whole therapy process.