"We Look At the World Once, in Childhood.The Rest is Memory..."

Before the words Before the story Before a child could understand The body learned the weather Of an unsafe hand Before the mind made meaning Before the voice could say The nervous system listened For who would help or stay A baby reached for holding And found a frightened room A mother lost in sorrow A father gone too soon A cry became a question A hunger carried shame Tiny ears kept listening For footsteps, voice, and name Some parents carried thunder Some vanished into air Some bodies stood beside the child With very little care Life came hard and heavy Through the nursery door Some love arrived in pieces Some children needed more So shoulders rose for shelter The jaw began to seal The spine became a tower Around too much to feel This is how the body loved us This is how the child survived Bracing around attachment shock Keeping breath alive This is how the mammal waited For warmth, rhythm, face, and sound For someone safe to find them And bring the body solid ground These are the Interweaves Where the old armor breathes Where the head and body listen To the pain beneath belief A fraction of a turning A shoulder softening slow The eyes return from exile And the hidden rivers flow This is healing through precision This is mercy through release Unwinding early bracing Into breath and gravity Some homes were full of silence Some homes were full of rage Some children memorized the ceiling Like a sky inside a cage A glance became a lightning strike A door became a threat The body kept the memory so The thinking mind could forget The head pulled back from impact The sternum folded down The belly held abandonment Like thunder underground A child could feel the absence A child could scan the room A mammal born for bonding Learned distance far too soon The hands still reached in dreaming The legs prepared to flee The throat held back a calling For the caregiver to see "We Look At the World Once, in Childhood. The Rest is Memory..." Attachment shock keeps steering What the eyes expect to see Until the body reorients Until the brain comes home Until the past releases Its grip inside the bones These are the Interweaves Where the old armor breathes Where the head and body listen To the pain beneath belief A fraction of a turning A shoulder softening slow The eyes return from exile And the hidden rivers flow Neglect can shape the rib cage Abuse can hold the jaw Abandonment can teach the neck To brace before the fall Dissociation fills the hallway A parent disappears inside The child keeps watching closely With nowhere safe to hide Broken-hearted caregivers Can pass along their storm A baby feels the weather Before a thought is born The chest may fold around grief The shoulders guard the ache The mouth may hold the scream inside For the little mammal’s sake Fear, rage, shame, and sorrow Rise beneath the skin Affect grows like ocean With the tide held in And all of it was faithful All of it was wise A brilliant little nervous system Learning how to rise Think gently beneath the ears now Let the jaw release what's bound Let the shoulders lift and widen Let the blades fall softly down Let the sternum find its yielding Let the spine release the strain Let the chair become a harbor For the child inside the pain Let the head come forward, downward Let the breath return as gold Let the body feel the present Warmer than the cold A mammal heals through safety Through rhythm, warmth, and care Through a body that can sense again A living world is there The eyes begin orienting The head returns through space The nervous system updates Through gravity, breath, and place The past becomes a signal The present becomes clear Attachment shock releases And the body lands right here A clinician sits in stillness Seeing what the body made The old protective architecture The childhood barricade A head that turns from sorrow A chest that guards the ache A shoulder holding history For the little one’s sake Through attunement and timing Through presence steady, clear The blocked affect rises softly And the shock begins to clear The orienting starts returning The eyes begin to land The body finds the room again The floor, the chair, the hand These are the Interweaves Inside the DBR flow Where attachment shock can surface And the body starts to know The child within the armor Feels the room become safe The nervous system gathers A new embodied faith These are the Interweaves The quiet art of release Where early protection completes And survival opens into peace The body finds the room again The floor, the chair, the hand The body protected the child. The child made it through. With precision Presence Gravity And time The armor opens The shock completes The body returns And the present becomes true