Better

It gets better.
You hear it over and over again.
From blurred faces in office chairs.
You're not sure you want to hear it anymore.
You know they're experts. Maybe they've lived it.
But you're not quite sure you believe them.

Until you do.
There wasn't an alarm that went off.
There wasn't some all-encompassing moment.
It wasn't because you completed every item on the trauma healing checklist.

It's the moment you wake up, and you don't feel crushing cement filling the inside of your ribs.
It's the moment you're drinking your Saturday coffee with too much creamer, and you sink a bit deeper into the cushions because you don't have to answer to someone that morning.
It's the moment you feel the lines crinkle on the sides of your eyes, as you gaze into ones that don't make you hurt.

It's many moments and one.
You just pause.

And you know.

Maybe even one day you say it aloud.
To yourself, then to someone else.
It gets better.

And all you can do now -
is to try to tell the next one -
skeptically reading this -
gazing helplessly at those faces in office chairs -

It gets better. Or maybe really it's -
You get better.