Generational Trauma / Healing / Women’s Narratives
Murky Waters is a micro‑chapbook about:
– generational memory
– emotional sediment
– unhealthy relationship healing
and the quiet ways women disappear in relationships.
These poems move through inheritance, silence, boundary‑setting, and the long shadow of learned patterns.
They trace how old wounds settle like silt in the body, and how clarity returns in small, steady tides.
Poems include:
– marrying the wrong man
– submerged
– 2 avoidants in a pod
– he sulked and pouted
– fade to black
– touchdown
– touch
– i said no
– the singing priest
– red flags
– murky waters
Available as an eBook, audio narration via YouTube, and below here on Dragonsinn.
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These are the stories we inherit. The ones we almost drown in before we learn to breathe.
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1. eBook (PDF)
2. YouTube
3. Poems
1. marrying the wrong man
Do you miss who you used to be?
Because I do.
Did you think he was going to change?
Because I didn’t.
Do you feel you deserved better?
Because I did.
Do you think self-abnegation is love?
Because I don’t.
I never liked him from the moment we met.
I could smell the lack of ambition hanging from him:
not for luxuries or branded goods
but for trying to be an equal partner
when sharing life’s burdens.
It runs in the family, doesn’t it?
Women as breadwinners
while able-bodied men sit at home
polishing their plans and dreams
sometimes even with indiscretions
because we were trained to let them.
Endurance and suffering were modelled as love.
Faith was treated as a higher aspiration
than any daughter’s health or well-being.
Did you think you’d be different or break free?
Because I did.
I remember when you used to smile more, worry less,
look forward to adventures you hadn’t taken yet.
Sometimes it isn’t age that wears you down
but the comfort of someone else’s life
built on your effort.
It’s funny how they never told us
that you can’t build a cathedral
from thoughts and prayers
They didn’t tell us that you need
someone who’s willing
to lift and move the stones with you.
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2. submerged
thought i’d finally met my match
with a Venus/Mars in Cancer
to my lunar Pisces and Venus Scorpio
you promised the moon, at first
and everything was great, at first
i thought you were being expressive
genuinely emotionally available
but there was still something missing from it all
under the tons of flirty emojis exchanged
like fun little non-committal transactions
you said that “care”
(before, during, and after doing the deed)
was of utmost importance
so why wasn’t i surprised
when you had one of the
most hollow touches i’d ever known
not cruel or careless
just contact without context
in a faraway hotel bed
it wasn’t like you weren’t trying
it was more like you knew exactly what
to say or do
to get what you wanted
without a solid thought for
what goes into a foundation for something real
you’d mutter words then go the other direction
best of all
you had no awareness
(and therefore no remorse)
once it was over
as i swam into the depths
to try again with someone who
wouldn’t love bomb me
(even though you said you wouldn't)
with digital streams of affection
that dissolved like ink in water.
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3. 2 avoidants in a pod
The day you exchanged vows
I knew I had lost you.
Not to him,
but to the new dynamic.
It was in the way
a neutral chill became the baseline,
where your trailblazing independence
slowly hardened into isolation.
I can’t remember the last time
we had an emotionally honest conversation.
The way you go quiet
when I do things
that, mirrored, would also set you free.
As if my choices threaten what
you’ve built to block it all out.
Fear and self-defeat
are a hell of a cocktail.
They make you believe you should be grateful
for lowering your standards.
Still, you made your choice
and picked familiarity
over the life you had before
or the life you could’ve had
It’s just easier to keep it buried
or look the other way.
Is it any wonder
that your prolonged insomnia
echoes the rage you once spoke of that
never goes away?
Therapy can’t erase it like a magic wand.
It can only guide you toward
the places you might go
if you were ready.
But it’s just more comfortable, isn’t it.
Being two avoidants in a pod
labelling indifference
as peace.
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4. he sulked and pouted
when you asked if he’d
wrap it up
get snipped
since you both didn’t want kids
pills plummeted your libido
no one warned you
about dilation before the IUD
an oopsie still happened
and you went alone
to get it taken care of
while he stayed home
playing video games
another clinical process
not without pain
but don’t all women just whine about everything
as they vacuumed around
as it was too far along
for Plan C
you got your meds
made dinner while he took a nap
you went back on The Pill
keeping a truce for now
through a dead bedroom
so tell me
what part of this feels like partnership
and what part feels like you keeping things afloat
while he asks what’s for dinner tonight.
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5. fade to black
I asked you for what was mine:
my film collection
you said “fine.”
I waited and kept waiting
knowing I’d never
be holding it again
just like how you
never cared about
or saw through
the way I catered
and faded.
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6. touchdown
i moved out and walked away
a decade later than i should have
moved to a college town
beside a stadium
the first weekend of college game sounds
came from outside my home,
but it transported me
back to our bed, our couch,
where your phone would be in your hands
seconds after you’d gotten off
scrolling sports stats
chatting with
your friends
your family
your other life
every Sunday, holiday, vacation
was a day for sports
the screams, the yells, the euphoria
as i floated away and wondered
about chores, bills, income streams
every night was a relationship with the TV
the dog beside you
the cat beside me—
my one companion
in a heavily imbalanced
and mismatched situation
i heard you were devastated after i left
because you had no clue
i did tell you, many times
but it wasn’t as loud
as all those goals, saves, touchdowns
you need to be with a sports fan
i never understood how fantasy football
was so much more important
than making time
for conversation.
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7. touch
when i saw you playing ball
with your cousin
in our backyard
i saw how in sync you both were—
hands with the right grip
knowing what to do
the careful handling
after the activity
where was that sync,
that care,
in bed?
i saw how a ball
and a family of origin
meant more than anything
between you and i
i left 8 months later
after 8 years together
about the same time your cousin’s ex
left “all of a sudden”
without a word,
after years of going through the motions
apparently, she also
“hated sports.”
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8. i said no
i had an outpatient surgery—
over in less than an hour
back home
thank god i had space to rest in private
while you hung out with your brother
all day in the living room
TV on
with video games running.
i had meal‑prepped the week before
you invited family over for a big dinner
two days later
as a visiting uncle was in town.
my insides were on fire
i had no post‑surgical meal directions,
no warning that the digestive tract
takes time to wake up
after anesthesia.
thought i was going to pass out more than once
it was the only time
i almost called the ER
have you ever blacked out
from the labor-like cramps
of that cursed over-the-counter laxative
that has the nerve to promise
“gentle relief”
you thought it couldn’t be that bad
because you’d taken it before with no ill effects
like how you thought childbirth couldn’t be that bad
since it was “just natural”
something all women were supposed to go through
our pets checked in on me more than you.
my aunt texted to ask
if you’d been “waiting on me.”
i said no.
and just like the dogcare
that had been piled on me
the way you’d smile
and say you’d do something
with no intention to follow through
the free babysitting expected of me
the off-color jokes
that were “just jokes”
it must be me
i’m oh so sensitive
always me having to fit in
and never the other way around
our home decor
dictated by the familial aesthetic
i saw how this would go on
you wanted to say “i do”
but i just couldn’t see
a future
it took me two more years
to attend or host
a final family dinner—
you can have them.
you weren’t lying
when we once did a couple’s journaling activity
and you wrote down just one word
under the question
about the most important things in life:
“Family.”
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9. the singing priest
i was six years old
listening to a sermon on chores
that suddenly turned into
songs of praise
a baritone offering worship
while women scrubbed and polished
pots and pans
until they shone in the sun
the congregation’s applause
growing louder with each refrain
a single woman beside me
shifted in her seat
as if the spell didn’t quite take
i helped with the dishes, too,
as the leader placed bowls and plates
into the deep, freestanding sink
a basin holding more silent pleas
than soap suds
“you know,” he said fondly,
“when i was growing up, i never once saw
my father wash the dishes”
he walked away
humming another hymn
while i quietly continued
among the women
singing in a trance
as they were expected to.
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10. red flags
the tempers flared early
in the ones from way back when
the first time someone
warned me about it
was through a mutual friend
and another friend of a family friend
i only learned the rest
through lived experience
and the internet collective—
/ lack of boundaries
belittling
verbal and other abuse
unequal division of labor
emotional immaturity /
because of how normal
it all was from the start
“oh, he’s really nice the other half of the time”
“divorce is a sin”
“the love is still there”
“he doesn’t mean it”
“the man is always right”
“the woman serves the man”
“if we don’t speak of it, it isn’t real”
“women take care of the things at home”
“at least he’s not hitting me”
“it could be worse”
“everything will be all right in three days”
well, three days became
three plus decades
they called me names
gossiping like fire over text and phone
for dating several men
in quick succession
but at least i held on to
who i was,
instead of being crushed under the regret
of lowering the bar
again and again
in the lineage of
disappointed daughters
who stayed in marriages
that weren’t fulfilling
i was supposed to do the same—
roll over
endure
welcome with open arms
the blatant lack of
respect / joy / support / tenderness / togetherness / appreciation
oh yes, i was supposed to believe
that all of that
was
love.
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11. murky waters
being treated like a therapist as a child
is how she ended up hearing both sides
the message drilled in from young
that a woman’s worth dissolves with age,
or that a marriage ends
when she no longer wants to perform
certain expected duties
while from the other side
it was all about endurance
putting your own happiness aside
putting up with things because there was “no choice”
keeping everything inside
because seeking help was dismissed
running the household
because no one else would
gee, makes you wonder
how the child, once grown,
wouldn’t know what emotional intimacy was
or how she’d end up treating
a meeting of bodies
as just another transaction
connection sounded like fiction
a dream from a distant shore
until she met someone…different
someone with their own ups and downs
but who didn’t treat relationships
like a battlefield
or an unconscious repetition
of inherited patterns
someone who didn’t rush headfirst
only to vanish when things got real
someone with quirks
but with a way of communicating
that felt like a shared journey
oh, what a soothing balm it was
to have a meal
or sit beside someone
for a real conversation—
one not overtaken
by the old storms of resentment and fear
from the deep well of contempt
that once defined her world.
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