Elaina, a RISE Healthy Housing and Support Services Supported Housing resident, shares this deeply personal poem about overcoming trauma and finding the resiliency to continue to get better. Writing and creating poetry is a great way for many people to self-affirm their personal power and creativity.
Thank you Elaina for sharing your poems with us.
” BETTER ”
I really try to do my best.
Hopefully I become better with each day.
Though sometimes I get listless,
Feeling that awful old urge to run away.I start wishing I could travel back in time,
Curled up, arms around my mama’s knees,
While Daddy read a nursery rhyme.
Then Mama softly sang me to sleep.Those days are so far gone.
No more than good but, distant memories.
Yet, I know, each day brings a new dawn,
A renewed faith and a strange, fresh energy.All of this reminds me never to give up,
Not to revert back to what I used to be.
Of course each path will have a few bumps…
The trick is to navigate them carefully.So, when I start feeling like I just can’t go on,
I take a short stroll down memory lane,
Just to see how far I have come.
I’m past the self-loathing, hatred and shame.Like most, I’ve learned hard lessons,
They only strengthen my resolve.
Succeeding is almost an obsession.
I may have no wings to fly but, I will not fall.I know that I am capable.
Yes, I get stronger every day.
Sometimes I can be truly irascible,
When I don’t get my way.Fortunately, perfection is not my goal.
I am seeking betterment with each day that goes by.
While life is sometimes hard and can take its toll,
I won’t quit getting better until the day I die.
Elaina has been writing poetry since she was 14. She took advanced literature classes in high school where she learned how to write poems.
Some of her poems were published in a local paper in Vermont where she grew up. In 2013, some of her poems were published in an anthology called Hear Me, See Me: Incarcerated Women Write.
The love of writing poetry has stayed with Elaina throughout her life and she has used it as a coping skill for many years.