TRAIL: A Somatic Consequence of Complex PTSD

Why We Wrote This

The parking lot was empty.
Not quiet—empty. The kind of empty that feels curated. Intentional.
She could hear a leaf land.

There were twenty tissues balled into the passenger door pocket.
Two more pressed between fingers that were trying not to shake.
The air inside the car was stale from crying and heated by sunlight that didn’t care.

But the air outside?

The air outside was fresh like a dare.

The sky was dangerously blue—too beautiful to ignore, too honest to soften.
And the yellow leaves? They weren’t "changing."
They were letting go with intention. Ochre. Burnt gold. Edges curling, veins darkening.
Some still clung to the trees with audacity.
Most lay in curated disorder along the trail entrance like an unswept offering.

She sat there. Engine off. Body undone.
Still braced, still burning, still unsure whether the world was safe enough to witness you.

Her shoes weren’t even tied.
Her ribs still ached.
But the pull was evolutionary.

And eventually, the body did what it knows how to do.

It opened the door.
It stepped out into something clean.
And it walked forward under a sky that refused to dim.