Stacey Barbe
Poet · Louisiana · United States
My pain was silent. My scars became words.
My pain was silent. My scars became words.
I’m a New Orleans writer, poet, and memoirist in recovery. I’m also a survivor of childhood trauma and abuse, and much of my writing comes from the long shadow those experiences cast over my life.
But my story isn’t only about what was done to me. Somewhere along the way, the victim became capable of victimizing others. Addiction, survival, grief, anger, and the desperate need to belong shaped choices that hurt both myself and people I loved.
Recovery has asked me to look honestly at all of it.
I write about childhood, addiction, family, loss, shame, survival, and the complicated road back to myself. Poetry gives me a way to return to places I once could not bear to look at and find meaning there.
I’m currently writing my memoir and continuing to build a body of poetry rooted in recovery, memory, and the possibility that even after we have lost ourselves, we can find our way home.
My pain was silent. My scars learned to speak.
Published writing
The Water Fountain
The Water Fountain
The water fountain
stood between the children
and the bell.
A mirrored throat
offering life
without a single reflection.
They drank
like thirst was simple,
while I carried oceans
inside my chest.
The well in my throat
echoed without reply.
The bell rings
and the children run.
I walk, molasses slow.
Step on a crack.
I want my mama back.
Swallow the lump.
My shoes,
dragging across the asphalt.
Don't cry.
A rain-filled puddle
in the parking lot.
Keep walking.
An oil slick rainbow
floating on top.
Do not cry.
A swimming pool.
Children laughing
underwater.
Holding your breath
could keep you alive.
Hold it.
Dive in.
The faucet at home
dripped through the night.
I began to disappear
One
Drop
At a time.
No one came
to stop the leak.
The sink overflowed
for years.
We just kept
throwing towels
at the floor.
Some houses
aren't destroyed
all at once.
Some drown slowly
behind walls,
inside pipes,
under floorboards
where nobody looks.
A fragile pipe.
One crack.
I became the flood.
Some people drown
before water fills
their lungs.
Some of us
die of thirst,
with rivers
resting
on our tongues.