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To a first year teacher

And so…

My first year of teaching was a tsunami: smaller tremors and a huge earthquake.
My heart shudders, my tears flow, the effects of the trauma I cannot fake.
I listen to my heartbeat while my breathing hastens.
Here the wave of emotion comes, behold, perserverance and patience.
No song nor poem can erase the debris.
I am still gasping for air-what has come over me?
I cry at random times as the tremor emerges.
The flashbacks become overwhelming as the huge wave surges.

“Help!”- I should have said at the time I almost drowned.
But all I did was swim and crawl to find  higher ground.
Around me people seemed not to notice the tragedy because (perhaps) it was all in my head.
“Stretch out your hand and call for help”,  my inside voice should have said.
I shake my head and blink a few times to remind myself about the present.
I cannot go back, cannot regret, life’s waning crescent.
Though the memory of the disaster remains.
It is etched deep into my memory more than my labour pains.

And so, from me to you, young teacher, good heart:
Stretch out your hand and call for help because it is the best place to start.

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