VOICES
VOICES is a space dedicated to helping break the silence and allows individuals impacted by sexual violence to give voice and tell their stories.
Poetry and artistic expressions for this project can be submitted by emailing Krista Park Berry at krista@ocrcc.org. All submissions will be reviewed as part of the selection process. For more information, please contact Krista Park Berry at Krista@ocrcc.org or (919) 968-4647.
Kisses
Every day for sixteen months you plagued my brain.
You loved me, I didn't love you. I liked you, I didn't like you.
The reassuring words finally on the other line "Consent can change from day to day, hour to hour and even minute to minute."
The history doesn't matter. Forced kisses, confused but mostly- EMOTIONLESS- fumbling.
Two and a half times more likely to be raped than non-Native women... one in four will be sexually assaulted... I didn't think it'd be by you. Another Native knowing that pain.
Now I try to get you out of my head, away from my boyfriend... silenced.
"Just going along with it" haunts me to this day.
Letting Light Into the Depths
It may surprise people to hear that Letting Light into the Depths is a painting which, for a long time, elicited a painful response within me when I looked at it. I see a spine and pelvis in this painting, which wasn't planned but simply emerged as I painted. I remember taking this painting into a therapy session one day soon after painting it. I wept while trying to take a simple deep breath into my belly, as the painting seemed to encourage. My breath was meeting horrifying body sensations stored from childhood sexual abuse. Gradually over time, over years of taking healing slowly and taking breaths gingerly, I sometimes feel peace and comfort when I look at this painting.
Out Rage
Out Rage probably needs little explanation for the viewer. When I painted it, I was just beginning to feel safe being angry and expressing it. Out Rage shows the rage created when the innocent are violated so deeply. Anger shook apart the suffocating grip of self-blame. Painting helps me shift the rage outward rather than turning it inward to myself. The pain isn't truly mine to hold within me. I give it back to those responsible.
Dream Out Loud
Dream Out Loud is a reminder to align myself with the universe by voicing my heart's desire. This drawing conveys the belief that a spark of hope can emerge from the dust when everything around seems desolate and bleak. The tree represents life; rooted to the earth as the trunk extends to the sky serving as a reminder of the present, bridging the past and future. Ultimately, Dream Out Loud is surpassing one?s fears to seek one's dream.
~ Sophie, Carrboro, NC
in sleep
silhouetted like moonlight shadows,
my body lays bare to beams attacking.
limbs crawl inwards, a basic instinct
in becoming the smallest shape,
hiding from chances of punches hitting,
escaping being pulled apart, robbed
from ever knowing safety again.
i prepare,
poised,
every night,
ready to,
this time,
fight back.
sleep has passed me by these years,
turning life into one stretched awake.
if i rest tonight, how old will i be,
having only slept one night,
dreamt one dream,
lived one day?
i will sleep only if i know,
i will never awake hurt
again.
there is too much in this world
struggle to salvage the soul the world shreds with its flailing clutches,
shriveled fingertips, worn from grasping the end of thoughts,
stories that erode my eternal faith.
i do not want to hear the end.
how can the end be good when there is so much pain?
turn aside and lose your mind in nothingness to forget.
forget their stories, forget your stories,
forget that there is too much in this world.
i grab my pen to record the evidence of my existence,
with it, i multiply word archives.
difference has been added.
now, open to your control of the journey,
i will connect myself to this earth,
rooting my limbs while muscles still inspire,
and breaths long enough to shape actions,
so when my part in this tale ends,
it will be such an end,
as to be worthy of remembrance.
~ maryam
"In our hands we hold the seeds for healing broken hearts."
Quote from Zoe, age 5
Art work from Nancy Taylor
In the early 1960's I pleased God, my parents, church goers, family and people in my small town by not having sex until my wedding night. Then I was raped all night by my new husband who I thought had told me that he loved me.
Growing up in the 1940's and 50's, feelings were never acknowledged or talked about, particularly in children. I had no idea how to say, "Please stop! My insides are screaming with pain!"
Finally my husband did stop and I lay there in bed in a state of shock. I hardly slept that night and as daylight came I crawled to the bathroom, got in the shower, and washed away whatever had happened to me the night before. Out of sight out of mind. In fact, it was 31 years later before the memory of being raped on my wedding night surfaced.
That night my life changed in an instant. I was terrified of the physical injury my husband could inflict on my body at any time. I knew no one in this new town, so I couldn't explain to someone what had happened to me that night.
I was looking for a job but felt physically ill and down in the dumps. All the shopping, cooking, washing, cleaning were up to me. I hated my life but didn't know what to do to make it better.
Thirty-one years later in the 1990's when the memory of being raped on my wedding night came back up people were allowing their feelings to be expressed and there was support from the Rape Crisis Center to help me recover. I participated in several of their workshops and am very grateful for all their support in my recovery.
~ Anonymous (Submitted by mail January 2008)
Grandpop's Black Leather Shoe
Grandpop's black leather shoe
was still tied on to his prosthetic leg
when it arrived in the mail
one random day after he died.
The Veterans' home in Arkansas
sent the shoe, the sock and the leg to Philadelphia,
to my mother, his eldest daughter.
She did not go to any funeral for him;
my seven-year-old self witnessed her tears on the kitchen phone one night,
my only memory of her response to the news of his death.
What to do with this sordid souvenir of a man's life?
My father put it in the garage, of course,
home to all things that cannot be tossed in the trash
but do not belong in the house, either.
At some uncelebrated juncture
the uninvited reminder of my mother's father disappeared.
But the shoe, sock and leg remain glued
to my mind's collage of images cut from the past.
We never spoke of Grandpop again
until twenty years later,
trying to fit together the family of origin puzzle,
I asked Mom, "What about your relationship with your father?"
"There was incest there."
Fist to the chest, knee to the belly,
A curse upon the generation before me, and on mine.
And yet a blessing:
release from the guilt-ridden reasoning of childhood;
the damage done to my mother was not my fault.
Maybe resurrection in ordinary experience is like this:
hidden truth revealed rolls the stone away from one of the heart's tombs,
opens the promise of new life-within-life.
The secret piece finally clicks in place,
making clear the path of understanding
where the shoe fits.
Susan Steinberg
April 2007
Conquest
Just three beers under my belt,
and you're grinning check-plus-plus ---
is it victory to pick me up off the bathroom floor?
accomplishment to put me unconscious in the unmade bed?
That's the way you do things, isn't it?
untuck, unpack, undress, undo ---
wrinkle a shirt, crumple a fist.
But a soldier, you say, must be starched and straight.
Tomorrow you'll pull the ironing board out of the corner
and get to work on the ribs and valleys of your uniform,
spouting Air Force, spouting pride,
and your military is on my thighs
as I pull on jeans to leave before you wake and rise,
dazed from the blood you drew as I cried.
~ anonymous (February 2009)
Dignity
And when it comes my time to die
I hope I do so with dignity and grace
With love left in my heart for those I leave behind,
And, those I have yet to face.
I welcome the opportunity to live this plan
And accept all things said to me both painful and with love.
May I use these to grow and learn;
From a place, still, within and with compassion.
And even though I may not say
Without regard for respect or Will
What I hear come toward me still
I love the owner of the words.
Amen
Generations
If I were you, and you were me
We would sit beneath this tree.
And contemplate your greatest fate
Your fortunes made, your best debate.
And I would smile inside and out
At the the thought that you were mine.
Mine own true blood and love, with fault
That made me proud to be.
Confessions
I must confess I have a good side.
It shows up when no one else is looking.
It sneaks and lurks about
With thoughts of gratitude and plans.
My alibi is my soul.
~KC
