The Ministry of Time

by Kaliane Bradley

An underrated symptom of inherited trauma is how socially awkward it is to live with.

being in love is a form of blunt-force trauma. I was concussed with love for him. I bent my head to the cudgel.

I became demented about his body in nonsexual contexts. If his shirt lifted and his trousers dragged when he was trying to reach a high shelf, revealing a crescent moon of hip bone, my heart would beat so hard I could basically chew it.

after all, the things that happen between lovers are lost to the work of history anyway. But I wrote it down because I need you to bear witness to it. He was here, by and with and in my body. He lives in me like trauma does. If you ever fall in love, you’ll be a person who was in love for the rest of your life.

I had always thought of joy as a shouting, flamboyant thing, that tossed breath into the sky like a ball. Instead it robbed me of my speech and my air. I was pinned in place by joy and I didn’t know what to do.

I was filled with happiness, so enormous and terrifying it was as if I’d committed a crime to get it. No one had given me permission to feel this way, and I thought I might not be allowed it.

He combed his fingers through my hair and I was frightened with happiness, harrowed by it. There was no way that anyone could feel this much without also knowing they were going to lose it.