"Between the Folds of Trauma" by Doryn Herbst

CW: Sexual abuse

I listen to a survivor of incest

telling an interviewer about how

there were days when we would

sit as a family for a TV dinner,

a plate of sausage, egg and chips

on our laps, watching Top of the Pops

as if we had not a care in the world.

Sometimes, a few peas rolled

off my plate onto the floor.

I would scoop them up and

put them in the bin.

Our delusions of normality,

our figments for the outside world.

Doryn Herbst, originally a scientist in the water industry, now lives in Germany and is a deputy local councillor. Her writing considers the natural world but also darker themes of domestic violence and bullying. Doryn has poetry in Fahmidan Journal, The Dirigible Balloon, CERASUS Magazine and forthcoming in Sledgehammer Literary Journal. She is a reviewer at Consilience science poetry journal.