At The Voices and Faces Project, we believe that art and writing can
play a critical role in creating change. "The Stories We Tell," our
testimonial writing workshop for survivors of sexual violence,
domestic violence and trafficking, was developed to be transformative
for both the writers who take part in it, and the readers who
encounter their poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. Here is a
selection of some of this writing, from our pilot workshop at the
Chicago Cultural Center.
My Ghost by Sara Burr
There’s a naked woman in the street.I happened to glance out the door,
Open to the slight breeze this hot night,
And saw her stumble into the road.
A woman without clothes, white skin
Reflecting the light of the street lamp,
Who made no sound in flight.
I watched silently, then
Slowly turned into the room.
What caught your eye, my husband asked.
There’s a naked woman coming this way, I replied.
He did not move to her aid, and I stood frozen,
Remembering my own rush for the alley in this
Everyday neighborhood, and he in close pursuit.
Like the nameless woman coming our way,
I knew sometimes it’s safer in the street.
Copyright © 2011 by Sara Burr
Pregnant by Christa Desir
“Where’ve you been?” I asked, pulling her into my kitchen. “I don’t know. Figuring stuff out, I guess.” She dropped onto a stool next to the large island. She barely looked at me. Her fingers squeezed the fake grapes in the ceramic bowl my mom had made. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I didn’t want to be angry but she’d disappeared for 3 days, completely MIA. She hadn’t returned my calls, texts, or emails. “Things have been pretty stressful lately and I needed to unplug.” She let out a deep breath and my heart squeezed. Had I been putting too much pressure on her? “Well, did it work? Did you figure out what you needed to?” The grapes rolled through her fingers. She didn’t look up. “Sort of.”
The conversation was going nowhere. Ambivalence wasn’t Mia’s strong suit. She was a straight shooting no bullshit kind of girl. When I first met her, she told me my haircut made me look like an asshole. I sort of loved her then.
“What the hell, Mia? Are you pissed at me or something?” Her hands dropped to her lap. She stared at me. She’d been crying. I’d missed it when she walked it. I walked over and sat next to her, taking her hands into mine. She shook her head sadly. “No. Just figuring stuff out.” I searched her face. I shouldn’t have asked her to have sex with me. It was too soon. She hadn’t worked through everything that happened two months ago. I bit back the familiar anger and squeezed my eyes shut. “I shouldn’t have asked you.” I rubbed my thumb along her wrist. “It’s too soon.” “No. Well, maybe. I don’t mind that you asked. You’re a guy. We’ve had sex before. I get why you want to again.”
I felt like I had been slapped. Was that how she saw me? As just a guy interested in having sex with her? Her words cut through me. I wanted to understand, but I wanted her to understand that I wasn’t the guy who raped her. I was the guy who loved her. I swallowed back my retort and laced my fingers through hers. “You know that’s not why I want to.” She nodded her head but I could tell she didn’t get me, didn’t get how having sex with me, being safe with me could make things better for her. “It’s okay. I can wait.”
She smoothed out my eyebrow, I had one hair that always liked to stick out in the opposite direction. “It’s more complicated than that.” I waited, the space between us growing. I wanted to reach out and pull her towards me but she had this distance around her, one I hadn’t been able to get past since the rape no matter how close I stood to her.
“I’m pregnant, Trevor.” The world around me stilled, like all the molecules in the air had frozen. Pregnant. I couldn’t believe it. Pregnant happened in movies, in crappy teen Lifetime specials, in books only girls read. Pregnant didn’t happen in my world.
I opened and closed my mouth, looking for my voice, trying to find the right thing to say but I was paralyzed and the only thing that came out was “Mine or his?
Slowly You Will Sink Into the Depths of My Memory by Molly Harris
I am near the ocean now, I reluctantly step inside. I have dreamt of water so many times. Whales, orcas, and dolphins swimming deep - I enter their world. Sometimes a guest, sometimes a target, sometimes I am one of them.
The water rises as I breathe shallow. The tide will pull me deep if I don’t catch this coming wave right. I should have known better than to explore this unpredictable, unforgivable, and vast ocean. How can I escape? Will I drown all by myself?
Flashback: I offer him my soul if he will spare my life. I bargain with the shadows of men in nightmares daily. I make promises and search for an escape, but my body is not my own, and now my body is on its own. My spirit seeks refuge and weeps helplessly high in sympathetic trees. I call out loud and hear my voice echo as it disappears into the vast blue open sky.
I can sense this man has no heart.
But my life will be spared by a breeze through the trees.
A fawn splinters a stick.
An angel exhales.
And he is gone.
I lay stunned and fragmented. Tears and cells distorted on the forest floor. My most sacred spaces mixed with dirt, and bugs, and blood, and bent grass.
I have to run, I have to escape. I do not dare look back. I gather what is left and leave most everything behind.
Inside there is a shallow nothingness, like the pool in early fall - dying leaves, hollow ground - memories of another life. I begin to remember a future I will never feel.
How do you bring yourself back into yourself? What magic will make this inner space safe?
I attempt to make sense. I try to use words, but 2 languages are not nearly enough. I make art and sing songs. I try to create. I try to believe. I try to be here now…and still…I flow with the current, too tired to resist. Acceptance is my survival, and I choose to let go.
I surrender and soften into the dark ocean. Deep water reflects my swirling brain and pulls on my leg with insatiable sadness. It holds dreams and danger and, it decides when. Floating in salty liquid, my fear seeps to the surface of my skin. I ask the Atlantic the question that I know I must not ask:
Why me? Why me? Why me?
A wave surges, and I expand, stretch my whole self out across the crest…
Coughing in shallow water, sandy rocks slide beneath my flesh. My body bobs and bends gently with the rising tide. I breathe deeply into a new life and wait. Hours pass before the sea begins to settle, and I can see clearly. A smooth fin sends a ripple of circles across a still surface, and dissolves back into the void without a trace. A secret kept, a mystery too profound for our minds to contain.
Acceptance is my survival, and I choose to let it go.
Two Days After A Rape by Sarah Sullivan
Two days after…
She awakes.
The stillness of the room is broken
By the creaking of springs
Rusted from neglect
Crying out their abuse.
She slowly, quietly, rolls over to the window
Holding her breath,
Praying no one else will wake
This morning is hers
This moment is…
Hers alone.
Out the window nothings stirs
The sun has already claimed the day
And is patiently waiting
For all to begin.
As she searches she sees nothing
And everything
The colors embrace her, drawing her out
The breeze gently fondles her hair
The warmth is…
Erasing the chill.
On the road below mirages appear
The tar absorbing all the sun will give
Much like a lonely child
Soaking up any form of affection.
Yesterday she woke seeing only darkness
And feeling violation
Barely able to place one foot in front of the other
Survival her only motivating factor
Seeking isolation from…
Her horror.
A lone stoplight flashes its warning
Like a crazed prophet
Screaming on the corner
Though hardly heeded by the locals.
Tomorrow she will wake to confusion
The cruel eyes of unsatisfied curiosity will look on
As her memories haunt her with acute accuracy
For the shattering of her spirit approaches
But for now…
She breathes
She smiles
She is alive
And that is enough.
Can’t Forget by Persephone
The month I was supposed to graduate from college,
the month when my days were taken over by TV news of students in Beijing having hunger strikes.
The week I was supposed to sit for my graduation exam,
The week I sat in a Hong Kong airport waiting for my boyfriend fled back to Hong Kong after demonstrating and escaping the bloodshed on Tiananmen Square.
The day my college classes ended,
the day I found myself in crowds marching towards the Chinese Xinhua News Agency protesting against the massacre.
The night before HK returned to China
The night they started to call us the impure ones for being raped by our British colonizer.
Errands by Evlyn Jackson
“Cherry or New Car?”
“What?” Evie says as the impatient voice repeats the question, “Scent. Cherry or New Car?” “Hmmm, are there other options?” “Ma’am,” pointing beyond Evie’s head to the corner of the store, “Over there. You’re holding up the line.” The attendant glared at her and then announced to the crowd, “Everyone, please decide on a scent before getting in line!” Evie cringed, thinking the attendant might swat her with a rolled up paper like she was a bad puppy. Agitated, she grabbed her wallet from the counter and scurried across the store to the scent rack. Hmmm, what’s the least offensive option to cover cigarette smoke and dog stench? Daunted, Evie scanned her options. Some she knew she hated such as “new car” and “potpourri” while others offered no indication of their scent: names like “passionate embrace,” “relaxing get-away,” and “vitality.” Do they really cost $5.79? Isn’t the minimum wage still under $8?
She opts for “dreamscape” and turns back toward the counter to join the line. She sees a man she recognizes sitting, huddled over his cell phone, fidgeting as if he senses the lion is lurking. Her heart drops into her stomach. Evie searches for the nearest exit. She’s caught between the urge to flee and the urge to walk over to the man she desperately loves. Could she simply say hello? She wiggles her toes to ensure she is on solid ground, inhales deeply and walks over to him.
“Pop?” He looks up from his phone. “Hello” she says extending both arms, indicating she’d like a hug. “Missy!” he says in his cheery Texan drawl “Well hello! Well, hey! Just getting your car washed on this sunny day?” He stands up, shifting his weight awkwardly and smiles. They embrace warmly and tightly - but only for a brief moment. “Didya get my email?” he asks excitedly, as if email were a regular exchange between the two of them. “That gal, a social worker or one of those, from Ohio, who was on the front page of the paper with the last name Jackson? I was sure it was you. We knew you’d be out there helping people, but Ohio! Jiminy! We never thought you would go to Ohio!”
“No Pop, I didn’t get it…” she said, but he cut in before she could finish. “Well Missy, you have to see it! Let me get on this wing-ding here,” referring to his cell phone, “and see if I can look it up for you.” She should say no and leave, keep the boundary between them because it protects her. She can’t. She doesn’t want to. She scans his face, his eyes, his handsome jaw-line and thinks how kind and strong he seems. Evie looks up and notices a woman watching them as she waits in line to pay.
“Well okay Pop. Sure, but only for a few minutes,” Evie sits beside her father, closely, intimately, like she always has. It feels good. As her father fiddles with his phone, Evie notices his hands are trembling. He loves her, she knows that.
“I wasn’t in the paper Pop…” she starts, but is interrupted by him. “Ah ha! I found it! When your mom and I saw it we just couldn’t be-lieve! Dad-gum-it, I usually keep the cut-out right here in my pocket.”
She feels sick to her stomach, angry, overwhelmed. The photo is a profile of an auburn-haired, pale woman wearing an abalone earring much like a pair Evie once owned. It isn’t her. Just then, the woman who had been watching them approached and beamed, “Oh, it’s so nice to see a father and daughter so close. You can see how much you love each other.”
Evie hadn’t seen her father in nearly a year. The last thing he had said to her was, “You’re just bitter because you were molested.”