When You Break

Unintentional screaming
Is always beyond control—

You can’t stop screaming. You can’t
Be stopped. That’s what’s terrible.

If your body’s taught you this
The hard way, multiple times,

Even reading of screaming,
Prolonged screaming, shudders you.

There are times when the screamer
Is only barely aware

That the screaming won’t stop, but
The agony won’t either,

And what awareness you have
Orbits agony’s dark star.

Screaming is an aurora
Unfurling over your skull

It is part of the horror,
Yet it’s almost trivial.

But the accounts of screaming
By those who’ve had to listen

Make it clear that’s so much worse,
Traumatizing in itself,

To be forced to hear screaming,
To be the one listening,

Unable to intervene—
Maybe on a battlefield,

Maybe trapped by a wildfire,
By debris from an earthquake,

A bomb-gutted bomb shelter,
Maybe floating on the sea

Hearing the screams from the waves—
Wherever there are screamers

Who can’t be helped and can’t stop,
Hearing holds the soul of hell.