LAUREN SAMBLANET
from poltergeist residues: rituals for traumatic hauntings
iii. wallow
a stain.
a mess.
i can’t wash it out :
what if i just lay with it for a while?
roll in it.
wallow.
at times, i go to therapy and protest doing any “work.”
filling the pool with dirt takes longer than expected. it becomes meditative. the floor in the apartment is old and i fear that the pool will cause the floor to crack or to simply fall out. videos of pigs show them in shallow mud pools. originally, i wanted to be fully submerged in the mud, but a thin layer seems better for this setting. the pool is as large as my living room providing room to roll around. to lay and stretch.
i add hot water to the mud, but the mud mixing process takes nearly twenty minutes, so when i enter, the mud has chilled.
a pig wallows to control her temperature. without sweat glands or the ability to pant, the mud is the only cooling tool for the creature. wallowing in water is not as effective – the water in mud evaporates slowly, leading to longer lasting relief from the heat. in cold weather, pigs continue to wallow. scientists hypothesize that wallowing is a sign of mental well-being.
i go to therapy and protest doing any “work.” i want to talk through the stain, again and again, without trying emdr[1] or other tools that might ease my pain. most days, my therapist won’t put up with this : she urges me to work so that i can keep moving forward.
but there are days when she lets me sit in it.
wallow : the act of rolling in mud or filth : a state of depression or stagnation.
as i write this essay, facebook reminds me, rather forcefully, what events took place on this day.
a stain a mess that can’t be washed out.
dirt. dust. filth. grime.
is dirt always filth? that which gives life, that which we return to. as a child, i extracted earthworms from the dirt, held them in my hands which disgusted my brother and his friends. there was something about their strange segmented bodies : which side was head and which tail? why didn’t the dirt cling to them more? how did they breathe, how did they breathe beneath layers of earth?
originally, the ritual was meant for severe depression. beginning the ritual, i am not depressed. i decide music may put me in the mood. philip glass’ five metamorphoses. entering in the mud, hearing the piano, i become melancholic.
the mud between my toes reminds me of my childhood. exploring the outdoors.
hiking barefoot in the mountains. the things i cannot speak. all the things, unspeakable.
my childhood.
like many moments in my life, i must look at my body. i must feel it. these are no longer a child’s hands. i am grown. my melancholy threatens to morph into dissociation. i am grown – i must remind myself repeatedly during the ritual.
and this why i need to wallow.
online literature about ptsd tells me : ptsd is not curable, but the symptoms can be effectively managed. this means that the trauma i experienced in the past will continue to affect my life and my body until i die.
in the mud, i cannot help but think of mud baths. of spas and massages. luxuries i avoid for to be touched in these ways by a stranger only triggers my trauma.
mud helps to tighten the skin. and this tightness makes the skin look younger. the process relies on drying out the skin. for days after the ritual, my skin is so dry that it is painful.
is there a process of healing that doesn’t hurt?
i think about metamorphosis through dirt.
beetles, insects, kafka. when you lift a log in the woods and beetles scurry out. abject motion. devolution. i think about aronofsky’s the fountain : eternal life. of flowers sprouting through skin, overtaking the body. of being overtaken by earth.
rebirth that happens so quickly, it becomes horrific. skipping over death, over decomposition by earthworm and maggot. skipping to growth of new life, growth through skin, bone, organs. through open mouth so we cannot speak.
the mud brings me back. childhood.
is there a rebirth that doesn’t hurt?
at times, your therapist is your best friend. she doesn’t just listen : she empathizes. and so she convinces you to try emdr.
after the ritual, i clean out the pool. i scoop the mud into plastic bags and place it in the trashcans outside my apartment. i rid myself of the “filth.” the process takes nearly two hours. to clean the pool, to remove the small pebbles and twigs, to wash off the silt. perhaps this is part of the ritual too, though i don’t document it. as i clean, i feel the melancholia leave my system. the frustration and exhaustion of managing my symptoms dissipates.
watching the video of my wallow, i am struck by how careful my movements seem : a dance. watching the video, i return to my body. grown.
she convinces you to try emdr. in this moment, it is a struggle. you want to stop. you don’t want to have to look at it, to remember it. the memory feels real : is it happening right now? the aquarium glass you constructed to keep you safe, to create distance between you and the memory is slowly shattering. water begins to leak out. instead of fish and seaweed flooding the room : a bunk bed, your underwear, your child hands.
it’s too much.
a dual consciousness : in one, you are trapped in the flooding room : in the other, you are sitting in your therapist’s office with the pulsars[2] in your hand. both you’s are crying. you can’t stop – both you’s are weeping and you’re stuck in the memory. drowning.
your therapist touches your knee.
it isn’t happening now. you are safe.
she enters on a raft and scoops you up. she isn’t holding you in her office, but on the raft, she hugs you and wraps you in a blanket.
your eyes open. in the office, she’s crying. the pain subsides.
so you take a step forward. you get out of the mud.
[1] eye movement desensitization and processing is a psychotherapeutic treatment often used to treat those living with ptsd
[2] pulsars are used in emdr to assist with bi-lateral stimulation, which is necessary for the healing process.
how much exits the system
rituals for traumatic hauntings:
v. how much exits the system?
“That the condition of womanhood, true womanhood, regardless of the genital situation, was to have been taken from, to have been, thus TO BE in the condition, in the position of being plundered.”
from “silence & some of its wages” by ariana reines
survivor sestina
piss for me again
o organ o hole of mine
i force i flush i finish and filter
unbearably caught within
craving retention and release
related to urologic symptoms is abuse casually
the act itself done casually
pissing in the car again
snow white cold eruptive release
o urethra o clear piss of mine
bladder without time within
i push i panic i piss without filter
stress strained kidneys filter
they say nocturia overactive casually
cause psychologically within
anxiety anxiously arriving again
o urinary tract o opening of mine
i crave reactionary release
satisfying inappropriate release
pissing in baths i forgo filter
o piss o pleasing piss of mine
soaked in hot water warm piss casually
pleasure shame flushing again
inappropriate retention still within
willful water within
who controls release ?
30.6% of women with OAB piss again
we force flush finish and filter
steady streams expelled casually
o urgency o frequency of mine
o bladder o swollen organ of mine
stretched against pelvic floor within
i cannot postpone piss casually
inappropriate prayer of release
remove piss remove past perform filter
remove urgency incantation again
o instant inappropriate release
o bladder without filter
i with past i with piss i piss again
i don’t know how to heal the actual site
is it just my throat now or is it my entire body or is it just the hole?
i think about healing as a space in which i can perform all the abject rituals that i dream up
i want to piss into a jar
to visually see how much exits the system through my urethra
if i piss enough will it leave me behind?
hands around my throat
if i piss enough will trauma be removed from my neural passage ways?
how to heal when it keeps happening?
they only choke me during sex
in this case before sex during the kissing
if you are a man even a good one
i am afraid of you
if you are a man and you think you are a good one
look deep inside and ask yourself have i used women as a site for my aggression?
have i fucked someone w/out consent?
she may not have said no but did u notice her body go limp like a dead thing,
like a fish?
watching the young pope dehydrated and a little weak vision blurry
even intoxicated i cannot sleep through the night w/out dreams of male violence and betrayal
i want to piss again
piss is healing
but coffee dehydrates further
and my pussy feels clenched
and dry
and untrusting
when he choked me on the wall
“ghost no’s
weeping
scratching
pushing / slapping
biting
whining
whimpering
vomiting ?
bleeding ?”
i added afterwards
“ silence / complete stillness”
to heal is to remove the grieving part of urself
to heal, much like being raped, is to die
a part of u dies but u get to be reborn
i do not trust and i already had problems with trust
christy says “the horrible theme is that all the men in your life are failing you”
she means right now
but it’s always been so and when it hasn’t been so i fear the men and i fail them
how to heal from a wound this deep?
i wrote a sestina about over-active bladder syndrome and ptsd
i love to piss
i piss when i’m excited and when i’m scared
so do many women (and men) who have been sexually abused
they make my cunt a site for aggression
so i transform my urethra into a site for exiting a place to remove toxins
it happened to me again so i’m just focusing on pissing all the time
i’m afraid all the time so i just pick at my fingers and think about peeling my skin off and just drink too much water so i can piss and feel like at least parts of it are being flushed out
i tell everyone that i have a good support system but no one in that system is capable to rewinding the clock or cauterizing the wound or performing an exorcism that takes the trauma’s imprint away
hi, it’s me lauren and i’m confessing again and i’m sorry this writing is so simple, but like julie says, sometimes i’m simple, trauma has rendered me simple. hi it’s me lauren and i’m writing something i hate and drinking water and just hoping that i can piss again soon. should i piss in a pitcher? should i watch the pitcher fill all day? should i drink that piss like bhanu or flush it down the toilet or should i pour it over my head or toss it out my window?
during a break from writing this, i poured my coffee down the drain, made lemongrass & ginger tea, did my breakfast dishes, and pissed into a pitcher.
the piss is warm and has steamed the sides of the glass pitcher.
it appears i am fairly hydrated since the piss is a very light yellow.
it smells of buttered popcorn jelly bellies which is concerning bc i have not eaten jelly bellies in a long while.
i have taken a photograph as evidence.
it seems i only remember to take photographs for evidence of the aftermath, not of the thing itself.
i still have the sheets with his semen on them. they have not been washed. they were a hand-me-down gift from my parents and have faded pink and blue flowers on green vines. his semen is on the right side of the sheets, about half way up them. he didn’t want me to clean it off; his exact words were “it doesn’t matter to me if it doesn’t matter to you” and then after saying that, he tried to lay down on it. i wasn’t able to stop him from choking me or fucking me w/out a condom or permission, but i was able to make him get up so i could blot the semen with a tissue
writing is a form of evidence but it does not actually help in a court of law
when i piss i imagine pre-cum and flaked penis skin coming out with my urine
i understand that piss does not come from the cunt but it’s all of my pussy i feel i have reclaimed
today women are marching in dc, in philly, in nyc, in boston, in chicago, in denver, in la, in san francisco, probably all over the world. they are marching because our new president (not my president) is a rapist who brags about sexual assault. they are marching because he is racist. they are marching because he is a threat to our bodies. they are marching because he is a facist.
i can’t leave the house.
in my mind, i am marching with them. i’m here pissing into a pitcher in solidarity. it’s my piss not trump’s. the more i write of this, the less i feel like i can share it with others
i have recently been a victim of a violence but i am not a victim. i was recently told that i’m weak but in fact, i’m very strong. this is a cheesy paragraph and should be cut from the “poem” but likely should be saved to aid in my own healing. my mantra for the next 29 days of yoga is “i choose to be present and kind during this hard time in my life.” healing requires a certain level of cliché and cheesiness. maybe that’s why i’m pissing into a pitcher – to counteract the parts of healing that are a little too soft. pissing isn’t really subversive anymore – piss fetishes are well documented and discussed – we all acknowledge that sometimes you just have to piss in public (acceptable only when it’s late & ur drunk) – we aren’t really embarrassed or put off by piss. i’m not pissing in a pitcher to be subversive. i just want to watch the liquid exit my body.
pattie says the body can be an archive and my first semester at temple, b signed my copy of the empty form goes all the way to heaven with, “because there can never be too much writing about our bodies” and no one really prepared me for the intensity of grad school but i feel very blessed to have ended up here with pattie and b who seem to never grow tired of my body writing. in undergrad, sandy, my professor, told me that i was writing the same poem over and over again and that’s why i wasn’t offered funding at any mfa programs. fuck you, sandy. i am writing the same poem over and over again but so are you and so are all poets and i’m pissing into a pitcher which feels like another form of writing this poem again and again.
i don’t yet have to piss again
not even a little bit feels like it’s building up
how much water can u drink before over-hydrating?
if i piss enough now maybe i can eliminate all trauma from this body & never again will a man use my body as a site for aggression
but this is naïve and doesn’t take into account rape culture which teaches men that it’s okay to use my body as a site for aggression
it feels good to be writing again but it’s embarrassing how simple this writing is and how devoid it is of poetic devices
today ariana reines wrote something on her tumblr
i read it after i had applied make up
i was drinking a smoothie and getting ready for work
ariana reienes said on twitter that this was something she’d been needing to say for a long time
and she said on twitter “sometimes bad things that are done to you can make you want to be dead”
what she wrote made me start crying but i had just applied make up
so like i cannot do with piss i sucked the tears back i held them in
she wrote that she sometimes thinks that to be a woman is to be taken from
she wrote about festering wounds and trauma that causes past traumas to spill back out
she wrote about forgiveness for fellow survivors and hope and solidarity
i would read it again to pull quotes from it but i refuse to cry again tonight
i’m going to piss instead
i’ve forgotten how to filter
i don’t know if writing that isn’t filtered has any use but i also don’t
know if writing should always have use
if i keep pissing into this pitcher can i heal it?
in emdr we create “containers” to hold that which troubles us so we can find some peace,
temporarily
i have two containers one is for things i want far away from me
it is an old leather suitcase with hundreds of locks on it and once it’s filled
i place it on a train that takes it far over the mountains and away
the other is a round metal tin with green cotton lining which is for things that i
might want to come back to soon or things that can be closer to me and once it
is filled i put in in a closest that does not exist in the hall of my
apartment building
currently neither one seems to be working because everything i put in them spills out
everything here is exceeding its borders
in order to see how much exits the system i have to let it exit
i with past i with piss i piss again
lauren samblanet is a poet and hybrid writer who cross-pollinates with other forms of making & other makers of forms. some of her poems have been published in a shadow map: an anthology by survivors of sexual assault, dreginald, entropy, bedfellows, the tiny, crab fat magazine, and aglimpseof. she has an mfa from temple university, lives in colorado, and works at a national nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness.