How to write about trauma

Lisa Mottolo

It is so peaceful to be unconscious.
The EMT cradled me like a long sleep 

as he carefully pulled me from the wreckage.
My mother was in the front seat.

Not unconscious, just dead.
A different, permanent type of peacefulness.

I’m taking a free course, now. 
How to write about trauma.

All the students are women, 
and I wonder if they’re more prone to trauma

or if it’s because the trauma is often the result of men.
I’m not saying it is, I’m just wondering if it is.

My mother was driving us home from her fiancé’s house 
after a long day and she fell asleep at the wheel.

Everyone always encouraged me to feel guilty. 
“Maybe you could have woken her before you crashed.” 

I don’t know, because I don’t remember.
My brain won’t let me remember, 

and that’s probably for the best.
All I remember is seeing and feeling blackness,

like a starless space,
and hearing my mother’s last words,

“what time do you think we’ll be home?”

Lisa Mottolo is the Project Manager for Atmosphere Press and she lives in Austin, TX. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Santa Clara Review, Stonecoast Review, Diagram, Little Patuxent Review, Typishly, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and others. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming with Unsolicited Press.