Too many people are made to apologise for how they feel, think, act, speak or look when it is trauma that has made us this way. This is my poem about that.
It won an award for best illustrated poem (runner-up) by The Advocacy Project, which makes me very happy.
This poem belongs to me so please do not reproduce it without my permission.
No Apology
She should not apologise
for the trauma
that formed her.
Or for the fire that warmed her,
burned her, turned her to ashes
and reignited her in the same breath.
Or for the million lives
and billion deaths
she fledged and shed as feathers.
Or to the divers whose
knees bled on stones.
It’s not her loss to console.
Maybe she is not one woman
but many women.
Maybe the way to understand her
is through her anger.
Her shipwrecked depths,
don't require your anchor.
Rosie Cappuccino.
Rosie Cappuccino.