Hi, Royal You: The next stop is a designated smoke stop.

On this train, I am
seated in the snack car.
I don’t want the young woman
sitting next to me
to judge me for
my second beer.
I have 24 more hours to go
until I am reunited in New Orleans.

There are four more days until
New Years and all I can do
is think about myself

now that I’ve stopped allowing
people to play the victim in my life;
how often have I portrayed one?
This is what started
the examination of all
of my unprocessed pain.

The route of this train
goes through every town I’ve lived
in my life so far.

I get to rush back through the
keg parties,
barn parties,
awkward prom pickups,
the favorite Polish delicatessen,
sneaking out at midnight to visit the park for the swings,
ending up being a senior leader at the student newspaper,
experiencing the great recession in the Windy City,
sports games where the only thing that mattered was food,
all-squirrel meat cookouts, Roseatti’s Pizza,
living in the haunted Victorian mansion made into condos,
learning what real work/life is,
and so on.

But, that’s it.
I barely visit
many of these
former homes
on purpose.
I reminisce on
the cascade of memories
as they pass by
but I don’t stay
with the feeling
they present.
It’s a sharp sadness
so painful
that when crying tries
to leave the body it
only comes
out in aches,
every time.
This is too much
torture
so now
too much
distance is created
to detach
in 1,168 miles.

As I am writing this
above the one-sided,
crumb-laced table
I am sitting at.
The hung crinkled
pale blue sign says
Seating for customers
purchasing food onboard.
I may be overstaying my sitting
or perhaps not enough.
My rebellious side says
Loitering for passengers
pondering feelings onboard.

In the last several years
I have learned a lot
about feeling responsible
for other’s feelings and
what boundaries are
via talk therapy. I learned
how to hold back tears
so my mother wouldn’t
be mad over
bruised funny bone
to appease her feelings.
As I got older,
hours were spent to shape
words to not start wars
with my partner
that are not needed.
I learned to say no
I cannot have
my best friend’s
toxic boyfriend
dictate our night out
via texting me repeatedly;
This does not make
me a bad person even
if they are upset with me.

The snack car is now
closing for the night 
I head back to my seat
with my third can of beer.

Victims are always accompanied
by the hero in written narratives.
Think every Disney-ified fairytale.
Though it seems in oral ones that
we hear from friends, family, and foes
a single person is often both.
The storyteller is simultaneously
the most
harmed and hailed
– this is the first clue.

The young woman is reading
a paperback book in large print
and doesn’t move her feet or bag
for me to get by and
I almost don’t mind even
though I fall feet first
into my coach seat.

There’s a satisfaction
in knowing
you’re right, sorry,
righteous.
pity plus prevailing
always wins
– truth, however –
will come out one day
when no one cares anymore,
including yourself.

As I keep writing this
versed meditation,
for more free hands, I leave
my latest beer in the seatback pocket
but I also don’t want to lose
my buzz.
I stare up between letters to
contemplate when to take the next nip.

Anxiety and depression run
in my immediate family
but it also seems so
does PTSD and CPTSD.
This is until I learn, the former
are symptoms of the latter.
These are developed illnesses
from (extended) traumatic events.

Recently,
I was told by a faux friend
that my anxiety attacks feel
like I am playing
victim.
My clinging to all the possible
negative outcomes with
heavy breath and shaky hands,
led them to ask
are you even
doing anything about
it?

It’s 8 AM and the train
is moving at snail's speed
giving enough time to enjoy
the passing art gallery
of graffiti on bridges and buildings
along with my black, burnt coffee
from the last train station stop.
Everything is so worn down
but incredibly present and useful
like the sold freeze-dried mac & cheese
people love on this cross-country line.

Are these the moments
when I am lost in unbalance
of tears to then unwittingly
ask to press unhealthy
habits onto the
universal, royal you?
By this I mean,
everyone in my life.
Possibly. I do like to be
favored – and pity was
the only way to receive
that from my mother.

While I ponder
peacefully out the large passenger
window an opposing train
flies down the other set of tracks
that provides a sort of jump scare.
It feels like an abrupt metaphor
just inches away from my face,
a head jolt and quick inhale reflex slices
through me.
Just a few moments later
when another train hurtles by
my body has no immediate response.

I suppose there are many
reasons why I want to be
loved by all. My
religious mother
taught me that pleading
is a virtue.

I’ve learned the reasons to be:

raised in a Christian cult,

sexual assault,

having “recovered” addict parents,

possessing cognitive learning issues,

sexual assault,

fed opiates as a child,

toxic romantic relationships,

sexual assault,

being trapped in the working class,

several friends passing away,

sexual assault.

The list could continue
into another day like
this train will,
but when do the reactions
cross over from required patience
and into unrelenting poison? How
does anyone actually process pain? How
does the royal you process pain without others? How
do the royal we not make our pain into their pain as well?

Our train races by a walking trail
where two moms with their
two strollers and two toddlers
are furiously waving to us
as we scream through
on visibly rusted rails.
This is a core memory
for most.
This is where it starts.

There’s the shame of past actions
if you committed them or
they happen to you.
I’ve learned an acceptance
of those moments
as irreversible.
And, somehow, to try
to still allow space
for mine and others’
anger
while also
not letting it define
the royal you.
This feels
vexatious (if even possible).
The defense of actions signals survival.

the sins of the mother are visited
upon the daughter and she still sins
herself

The line I am on
and the other I
take more frequently
make up some of
the oldest tracks
in the country.
Victimhood is one
of the oldest mechanisms
but this also makes stops.
I could roll into my hometown of
LaPorte, ‘the door’ in French,
and confront the devastation that
lives there for me – but I don’t
need to live there
forever –
physically or pretend
not to emotionally. Though, this
is a new revelation.

Perhaps that’s the answer
or not –
working to be better,
It’s about the earned crumbles,
the at-home-printed
ticket sitting in my sweater pocket,
the number of leg stretches between stops,
and the journey, right?