Honoring Sexual Assault and Poetry Month
As April is both Sexual Assault Awareness and Poetry Month – we are highlighting poetry written by survivors from our past The Stories We Tell workshops. This is a call to action to uplift the voices of those often going unheard. Please read, share, and be inspired by an extraordinary group of writers speaking their truth.
Tribe
by Sarah Sullivan
As night approaches
we stand united, protected, heard.
The ice and steel of silence is pushed away
as the glow of acceptance is reflected on our faces.
We remove from the fire the sharpened stones of common pain
witnessing, validating, honoring the cost required
to reach in and grasp our wounds.
We are making an Ebenezer of our life stories,
a pile of precious stones,
a marker to serve as testimony to those
who have yet to find the strength to speak.
And when the task is complete, we collapse onto the grass
(which has been softened by our tears)
and curl into the safety of each other’s backs.
We are a memorial that lives and breathes
And can finally sleep in peace.
Sarah Sullivan is a counselor and pastor who loves coffee and hammocks, and believes in the wisdom and strength of survivors.
Doll #1
Riss Myung
I don’t like window shopping because of them. It’s not because of their
dismembered body parts, the lack of an arm, or the way their legs strike an unnatural yet flattering pose. It’s not because of their too-smooth pale skin void
of spots and scratches. It’s not because of their slender snake-like body shapes.
It’s because they remind me of how I felt when he jarringly yanked me into the bathroom stall, stuck his fingers inside of me, and grabbed my breasts. The way my body felt like it was falling apart, legs being forced to move in a way they haven’t before. The way he complimented my “porcelain” skin,only to shatter me into pigments of red and brown. The way I wish I could have shed my skin like a snake when he touched me.
To him, I am a mannequin: nameless.
Mannequins used to frequent my daydreams. Always acutely aware of their presence like the gooseflesh dotting across the top of my arms, my sights would unwillingly wander onto their pupil-less holes as if I were in a hypnotic daze. Once our gazes locked, the wax from its face would slowly dissolve and drip down its pale body like wet, sticky paint sliding down the side of walls—until the rest of its body followed, melting into a puddle.
This viscous liquid would slowly slither across the floor. Towards me. Closer.
I know I am being hunted by this nameless form.
I know I will be caught.
Once a goop of the coagulated waxy material manages to touch a piece of my skin, it rapidly crawls over the rest of my skin. It latches onto me like a serpent
sinking its fangs into its prey. Except there are no dry scales that rub with friction, but only the soft smoothness of being fully consumed and devoured.
Who knew that letting go could feel like a deep breath?
The waxy liquid subsumes all thoughts, all feelings, all of me completely, molding over every shape and curve and indentation and bump of me. It lathers across my body, face, scalp. Once every part of it has imprinted on me , it drops itself off of me with a pop. Leaving me barren and empty.
I know it wants to scoop up my marrow and drink from it. Do you ever feel just as carved up or ready to be eaten up?
When I open my eyes, it has taken over my appearance.
I am staring at myself.
But I don’t recognize myself.
Because I know that body isn’t mine anymore, not since it was touched like that.
From him.
Who knew that one day, I would wake up an outsider in my own body.
At first, I liked these daydreams of being taken over by this parasite. That’s how I felt.
Erased.
I didn’t want to be in my body after it had been violated. I felt sick. I hated the sound of the toilet flushing, the faucet running water, and the process of putting on exercise clothing. I wanted the mannequin to have my body, to be me, to
smile in my place. I had desperately wished for the mannequin to be the one to slip over pieces of clothing that all felt meaningless to me, knowing that anyone could harshly take them off anytime no matter how much I struggled. I prayed that I could stop feeling this pain and live as the gray paint on the walls, unseen.
Then I hated it. The daydreams became nightmares where I’d run and run and run—
—running far away from the mannequin, running like I wish I could have when he grabbed me.
But the sickening smell of the wax would always fill my nostrils and paralyze me until once again, my face and body sucked away completely. And once again, I
am bare and barren. Left with the cloned mannequin of myself.
I tell it, I want my body back.
I miss the way the sides of my lips would turn up, involuntarily and free, cheeks twitching and sore from laughter. I miss the loving motions of slowly spreading Bath and Body Works’ Tutti Dolci pink peony creme all over the length of my legs and side of my arms to the expanse of my back. I miss the sound of the snap when I’d pull my spandex over my waist and the brush of my polyester T-shirts sliding over my torso. I miss the feeling of how my muscles would flex, disciplined motions that felt like brief pecks of kisses to my bones. I miss being able to run wherever I wanted without feeling fear and heightened senses.
The mannequin reminds me of how I see myself when I am not in front of a mirror. How I see the mannequin, I see myself.
The stylists dress the mannequin with the latest fashion and put them on display in the front for all to see. I dress myself in the baggiest clothes and long-sleeves
to hide my self-hatred so only I can see me. I am at odds with the mannequin.
The people who walk by the mannequin, oblivious to the thought put into the arrangement of clothing, is how I feel about the bystanders that day who probably tuned out my muffled screams and cries. Or maybe I was silent and the screaming was in my head. I don’t know.
Do you look at mannequins?
Are they just a passing, thoughtless part of your day?
Do you see me?
Riss Myung writes poetry to raise awareness against gender based violence and pen her experience as part of the Asian American diaspora. She aims to reforge her memories into a call to action because she dares to imagine one day she can write poetry in a world without rape culture.
Whole Again
Marline Johnson
I’m so tired of people telling me to get over it
Nobody ever tells someone who loss someone to get over it
Do they not know that
Every single time someone violates my body I lose apart of myself
My insides were torn apart
But my soul remains intact
I’m so tired of being called out of my name
For not succumbing to the catcalls of strangers
Do they not know that
I get tired of having to defend myself
See
My wounds were rendered invisible
Because people refuse to see them
I guess
My black was black enough to conceal these scars because
Nobody ever asked me how I got those scars and
Nobody ever asked me why I was so angry and
Everyone was so preoccupied with why I was so loud
But I was loud
Because I was screaming for someone to
LISTEN to me
To hear me
But most importantly
I wanted someone
To see me
Often times
Society has made me feel like
Samples at the grocery store
Set out to be pick over and never fully paid for
So no wonder
My wounds were rendered invisible
And no wonder
My wounds were buried under secrecy and shame
And no wonder
It took me 19 years to openly talk about my survivorship
See
I never have anyone tell me it was okay for me to tell my story
Until A long Walk Home
I couldn’t be,
What I couldn’t see
And I’ve been searching for examples on how to be whole again
Marline Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist, working in the visual and language arts, who trained at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. She is a Program Officer at the Chicago Foundation for Women and also works as a coordinator in the youth writing programs of The Voices and Faces Project. Her work as an artist and advocate addresses the ordinary acts of racial and gender oppression that have become embedded within our culture today.
The Daylight Basement
Carrie Anderson
All the times are the same time and we are in the same chair it is brown like the carpet is brown and it’s the kind of chair that reclines when you pull the lever on its side. On another day I might pull it over and over and launch myself backwards again and again just to feel the falling the sudden bouncy resistance that ends the fall, but today it’s not me who pulls the lever, the man does it, the TV is on, it is the shape of a box. On the screen men are running and depending on when I open my eyes they either chase a ball or throw a ball or collapse into a pile of men on top of a ball as the people behind them groan or cheer and they wear blue and orange and white all of them, the men and the people in the stands. The TV stays on while the man talks, this is rude I know to talk while someone is watching TV, he might miss something and then have no way of understanding what happens next, why the people on the screen are crying or laughing or getting up from the dinner table when no one has taken a bite. But the man talks anyway he uses his library voice, his mouth is in my ear, his breath smells like food he has chewed but forgotten to swallow and he has placed a blanket over us, yarn zigzagged together, itchy, the plasticky threads rubbing against each other make a sound like a hum. The man asks me the question I don’t know the answer to — what is it what is it what is it — he wants me to give words to what he is doing and I don’t know the answer but I know the word, it’s not the right word but it’s the only one I’ve been given, so I say it, I say it again, I say it over and over. And did you notice? — that the curtains are green, they are always green every single time.
Carrie Anderson is a writer living in Seattle, Washington.
My Ghost
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.
When 66, long since an escapee from severe domestic violence, Sara began publishing her poems in regional literary journals. She is now 76, working on her first chapbook of poems—about wild turkeys, cantaloupes, bad and good men. She lives with her husband in Madison, Wisconsin.
HYPERVIGILANCE
Sarah Degner Riveros
Dear Child,
There are a lot of rules. Let’s review them again.
Answer all their questions. Some questions prompt truthful responses; speak philosophically and rely heavily on metaphors from nature. Sometimes their inquiries will pry deeply; sometimes they will attempt to gather facts about your whereabouts or your plans, or your home address; answer those questions with longer and sweeter explanations about the past, where you used to live, what you did last weekend. Explain as much as you are able in one breath or until their eyes glaze over. Smile and ask a question back.
When asked about your relationship status, be married. When they ask about your connection to the baby, he is not your little brother. You are his mother. His dad just got out of jail. Better yet, say prison. And he’s on his way home for dinner. What you wear and the way you move can attract or repel. Cover your flesh and hide your curves. Try to look lumpy. Do what you need to do to smell bad. Baths are expensive and hard on your skin. Greasy hair and dirty nails are healthier. Be slow to smile and always ready to spit. Do not be obvious or aggressive about the spit thing, because it angers them. You can only use it once.
When you walk on the street and get to the intersection where you have to stop to wait for the light to change, know where your wallet is and where your breasts are. Have your elbows free and ready in case you need to use them. If the road is clear, jaywalk. If there is traffic, pause and stand tall, but as soon as you’re able, keep moving.
If one of them asks for your phone number and you think you might see them again, give them mine. When they call, I will take a message and I will let you call back under supervision. If one of them gets your real number, let it go to voicemail. Tell them you prefer to text. When they send a text, respond immediately. If they ask about you, say that you are fine and doing very well, and then turn the conversation to them.
Do not drink anything from a cup. Ever. This rule applies to bottles, cans, glasses, pitchers, mugs, and bowls. Drink from the faucet if you know the house, and if you are not sure, take your water purification kit and go to the river. Doors are not enough. You have seen why. Doors obscure your view, they come open, and they can be knocked in. Trust open spaces. Trust the sky and the woods. Trust the rivers. Trust solitude.
Sleep is risky. Get it while you can and learn to sleep with your eyes open. Learn to sleep on a bench in a public place with people watching. Sleep in hiding.
Above all, remember this, because it is the rule that writes all other laws. They owe you. You have the potential to bring their children into the world. They already owe you for that potential. Keep it that way. Do not ever, ever, ever let them give you anything. Keep the debts always in your favor.
You know the weapons. Keys. Brooms. High heels. Books. Frying pans. A shovel. Don’t be obvious when you scan, but know where they are. You know the rules. I taught you them all. I trust you. Keep them well.
In solidarity,
Your mom
Publication credit to Vassar College and the Vassar Review.
Sarah Degner Riveros is a single mother of five. She earned a doctorate in Spanish literature at Columbia University and teaches Spanish at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she is completing an MFA in Creative Writing this Summer. Learn more about Sarah through her website here.