A Decade Of Shock, Trauma And Fear Poem by Julia Luber

I don't know what could be more terrifying. I myself
can't even go through all the details in my mind- alone,
at all, step by step. Bullet points- organizational explanations.
It's too suddenly blinding and I drown in the shocking specifics
of it all. I would not believe it an iota if I did not know it is:
One hundred and one percent true. Every little fuckin' bit of it.
And somehow I have gotten "better" at dealing with it. Step by
step. Day by day. What has it been….a decade? Near a decade
less one year. That's right: I think around November 2010. I
think. I posted something strange on Facebook that day…..
I had gone into complete traumatic shock from an Instantaneous
Identification of a killer and everything became an instant blur.
I was not supposed to feel so completely vested in the late afternoon
news. I could not write down a thing of the specifics-where, exactly,
when, exactly, what happened exactly. Life turned into a blur-
my brain like a torpedo in a state of what fear would be: a missile-
a missile to nowhere. Somehow this feels like a kind of death to me.
And that is actually the upside, the making the best of it. My nerves
went into catatonic shock. And then it got worse and worse and worse.
The more I tried to deal with it and go through the proper steps to
get a killer in prison, the worse it became. Day by day. Hour by hour.
Inch by Inch. It got worse, and worse, and worse. The killer became a cop-
yes, Highway Patrol, Sheriff's Department or LAPD; I did not know- I
could not care. The killer went off her testosterone treatments and suddenly
looked so different. Would anybody ever be able to identify it in the news clip?
Looking like that squiddy creep killer in her big white truck on testosterone-his
big white truck is I suppose the politically correct phraseology. And can you imagine
having to be politically correct and on target with her and his about a killer on a
transgender spree, on a killing spree, looking like what to him or she. Can you
imagine caring? The more I've tried about it, the worse it has become. The LAPD
did not do a thing. Twenty calls. Or more over the years. Effort. Effort. A twenty-
six page profiling with a one page cover synopsis. And no response. They do not
care. At first I thought the problem in this matter was my shock. That I could not
speak about it. That I did not know where to go nor what to say. That I was like
a caged animal in shock, in a state of fear, mouth trapped, nerves trying to subdue
themselves. But all I felt was the murder I saw. Or the drive by kill at the fast food
restaurant on the news. I don't know if the target died. I went into an altered state.
I collapsed into writing a fiction. With my brain n shock, it was good that I had
written a screenplay a decade before and could suddenly transmute it all into unending
prose and story after story. Thirteen thousand plus pages. Thirty one books of a saga
series. I was in traumatic shock. I did not know what to do with my brain. I could
not stand being in shock. I was trying to feel something but I could only imagine,
invent, create and write fiction. Because I idd not want my life to be my reality. I had
nobody to talk with about it. What little I tried flopped. The person I tried to warn?
Because I feared for her life and would see them together. It bought it would kill her next.
She did not care; she did not believe me. She called me crazy. She continued to subject
her children to the killer more and more while she had baby after baby, and I had
miscarriage after miscarriage-from the shock; from the trauma; from the fear.
From the shock, from the trauma, from the fear. From the shock, from the trauma,
from the fear. This is not a pub song anymore. I am getting to the point where I can
almost sound dane about it…a decade of feeling and emotions gone gone gone forever.