The Nature of Healing
Corrinne Brumby
The thought I want to die goes through my head. I don’t really want to die, I just want the pain to stop, but it seems to keep going and going. I want to rest. I want to not have to worry that my estranged husband will call or text again trying to get me back. I want to let go and not have to hold myself up, staying strong all the time, protecting myself from abuse. I’m exhausted, beyond exhausted, I’ve felt exhausted for years and it only seems to get worse. All I want is to rest, really rest, but I’m treading water, desperately gasping for air. Every moment of peace is just another desperate gasp for air before being sucked beneath the waves of anxiety and depression and pain again.
I can’t see through the tears that blur my eyes. I try not to hit my head. I can’t control it and my head slams again my knee three times. It wasn’t too hard of a hit, but I have a mild headache. There are times I can’t hold it together, times emotions have to come out.
At my worst moments, I go to my backyard and sit in the humid night air. The crickets chirp, the occasional frog croaks, drops left over from the evening storm drip from gutters and tree branches, and I cry and write all my pain, pouring it on the page, until it’s all out, like Hemingway said, “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” So I do. I put my heart and all its wounds fully exposed on the page as poet Aaron Abeyta says, “All artists have this knick on their soul, that’s the beauty of the wound… Our wound heals others through our writing.” There really is no other way. To bottle it in is suicide. To write the pain is to exhale, to groan, to scream, to release it all in a breath, a sound full of pain, that somehow brings relief.
It feels good exposing my wounds, as strange as that may seem. Expressing the raw pain is somehow beautiful, full of color, reds and blues and purples, of all the blood and bruises. And I realize that is what I value most in people, including myself, rawness. It’s this honest expression of both our joys and our wounds that makes a difference. The most powerful advocates, the people who change the world, who really make a difference and impact people, have never done so by putting on a mask to hide, they did so by being raw, honest, and true to themselves, sharing their voice no matter the cost, and yes it always costs friends or money or being liked but at the same time it buys the most precious thing, the freedom of others to come out of hiding, exposing their wounds, being honest to themselves too, and here, only here is where together our exposed hearts begin to heal.
As I sit in the humid air, exposing my wounds, nature meets me, exposing her own wounds. She puts them on display for all, for me, to see her groaning, burning, raging. And in sharing our wounds we begin to heal one another. I’ll listen to her pain as she listens to mine. I cry and she cries. We understand and share our exposed hearts, our aching insides. We share our breaths exhaling and inhaling healing, not a one-time healing, over and done, but a continual healing, a communion of hearts beating as one.
Poetry:
Stage-Set by James Penha
Wither by Gina Marie Bernard
Barely by Brennan Thomas
Half-Life by Allison Walters Luther
A Younger Me’s Comfort by Rory Frasch
Rage by Afra Ahmad
It is March Again by Afra Ahmad
Disconnect by Mary Grace van der Kroef
Panic Attack by Devon McConnell Bacon
Sandman by Charlie Bowden
Sat in a New York Flat, Stirring Tea by Charlie Bowden
Reverie by Anastasia DiFonzo
I Learn I’m Left to Save Myself by Anastasia DiFonzo
That Which Surfaces by Cin Que
The Uncaged Arise at Dawn by Frank Njugi
Prose:
Momma Said by Atlas Booth
Learn to Control Your Anger by Dani Puteri
Spring by Shweta Chhachhia
Biography: Corrinne Brumby is passionate about telling honest stories that don’t shy from the difficult experiences of mental health and disability while bridging the human and natural worlds and helping people find a deeper connection with nature. She earned her MFA in Nature Writing from Western Colorado University and is currently an editor for Deep Wild Journal. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appear in a number of publications, including Magical Woman Magazine. She resides in Florida where she enjoys hiking, birdwatching, photography, food, and spending time with family.
Mental Rhythm Magazine 