“Nobody is Safe”: reflections on a poem and the impacts of trauma.
This blog was first posted on my Substack on September 3, 2025. The original post can be viewed here.
I wrote this poem a while ago, but I had an experience this morning that reminded me of it. I decided I would share it, and also share a bit about the meaning behind it.
While, generally, I think poems are most powerful when they stand on their own, I also think one of the strengths of my writing is my ability to communicate complex ideas about trauma, psychology, mental health, etc. through both figurative and poetic language, and more straightforward prose. So, I hope that you find this helpful for understanding a little more about trauma. And I also hope the explanation doesn’t overshadow the poem itself.
Nobody is safe. When they started dropping like flies into the depths of the honeycombs, buried themselves like bugs in amber, I didn’t know how to mourn them. This person who has seen me fall apart, and stayed with me through it. This person who has taught me it can be safe to trust another human being. This person who knows the deep fissures in my heart. All the fragile spots, so a swift kick could have me crumbling. This person who I no longer trust with my secrets. I watched it happen to one and it was, “that’s how it goes, you know? People come and then they leave you.” I swallow my tears until the abandonment stings less. (it never does) I watched it happen again, and maybe I’m making strides. Maybe I’m just still growing. Maybe I’m learning to let things go instead of dragging them around behind me. I watched it happen again and the safety net disappeared beneath me. They lit it on fire just to watch me squirm. Three is a pattern. (or is it a curse?)
A lot of folks who have experienced trauma develop beliefs about the world, and whether or not the world is a safe place. As a therapist, and as a client, I’ve heard so much about how traumatic experiences leave people believing that the world is an unsafe place, and how healing comes in the form of re-learning how to connect to a sense of safety in the world (when it’s appropriate). And that’s so true for many, many people.
But for me, trauma did the opposite. Instead of internalizing the belief that the world was unsafe, I found safety by believing that all the harm I experienced was my fault. The world? It’s a safe place. But me? I’m not a safe person.
That might sound confusing. How would feeling like everything is my fault make me feel safer? Many years of therapy and personal reflection have helped me understand the answer to that question: if everything is my fault, that also means that I am the one in control of my life. If I just try hard enough, if I always do what I’m supposed to do, if I’m kind enough, smart enough, judicious enough, perfect enough, then I have the power to keep myself safe. So trauma recovery, for me, has involved unlearning that belief that everyone else is safe and trustworthy, and that I’m not.
To me, this poem holds the dual meaning of both wounding, and of healing. For some, the process of learning to believe that “nobody is safe” is the effect of the trauma itself. In that reading, this poem describes the process of starting to feel unsafe in the world after experiencing betrayal. For others, including myself, it holds the opposite meaning, too. It represents the pendulum swinging the other way: for the first time blaming the people who hurt us for the wound, rather than blaming ourselves.
The final line encapsulates this for me, asking the questions: is this a pattern, or a curse?' Is it something I keep doing to myself? Or is it something that’s happening to me? Am I powerful, or powerless?
(Or… can I be both?)
Digital sketch by Me.
This blog was first posted on my Substack on September 3, 2025. The original post can be viewed here.
