If I Had Known

October 22, 2017October 24, 2017 by Girl Survivor ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If I had known
what he was going to do
I would have fought harder
If I had known
How he was going to hurt me
I would have fought to the death
If I had known
He would show no mercy
I would have given none
If I had known
He would ignore my screams
Or act like my screams only
Annoyed him
I would have screamed louder
I would have done these things
More than I did
But it was all I had at the time
Against a man whose weight
Was twice mine
Whose hate
I didn’t understand
Went way beyond me
And how he saw me
That he emphasised my beauty
As if I were the enemy
And everything I had
He took from me
Stripped away
Like my clothes
And my dignity

©GS

If he tricked and trapped you into it, is not consent

#IfIHadKnown #BreakTHeSilence #GirlSurvivor #RapeSurvivor #MeToo #BelieveHer

On Consent

October 16, 2017November 22, 2017 by Girl Survivor ♥ 2 Comments

We need to reclaim our own
agency
our body is our own and
belongs to nobody
it is not an object
or territory
over which men
-or anyone-
fight,
mark as possession
dominate or discard
and ravage
and leave devastated
when they finish
scorched earth
and try to poison
when he cannot have
jeopardise
our way of communicating
for us, women and girls
and for boys and other men
No one but you
Has the right
to tell you what you want
or wanted
or that you agreed
when you never consented
or you were pressed
to sign a blank check
and never saw the
small print
consent is an agreement
in full knowledge
of what is coming
and the right to refuse
without consequences
not a con trick
where you were cornered
and depleted of your senses
It is your body and
yours alone
you are beautiful
You are human

©GS

Photos with thanks to Miguel Salgado and Andrik Langfield-Petrides
#RapeSurvivor #Girlsurvivor #Consent #NonConsent #NotOkay #DontBeSilenced #MeToo

My Body is a War Zone

October 15, 2017August 30, 2019 by Girl Survivor ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

My body is a war zone
Fields of devastation
Left on her barren plains
Bombs and rockets
have exploded here.
I pick up the shattered pieces
And try to
Put them back together
With tears
That will not come
Shaking and numb
I make my way
Across the battle ground
The used condoms
He tossed aside
For me to clear up
He derides
Yells at me
To pick up his clothes
“Pick up my pants!” He shouts
I bend down
I acquiesce
In silence
I do what he says

Am I broken?
I don’t know yet
he told me
“Sex is the test”
If there is
No connection.
I failed
I showed emotion,
Only distress.
He complained
He saw
Sadness in my eye
I could not
Pretend pleasure
Not even
For him
For this
My screams
Put him off
His climax
His stroke
Kept going
Hard
Like
ice
Concrete
Fire
..
Blood
no blood
Robotic
Fear
Breath
in me
Quiet
Rising
Stifled
Cries
I could not
Struggle
Move
Not
My hips
My arms
I was stilled
To a silent
Stupid
Stunned rabbit.
Stupid
Contortion
Stupid
Heart beat
Stupid
Stupid
Me

These are
Some of
The feelings
Irrelevant
To the man
Who rang me
Early morning
From the police

I’m not interested
In your feelings
He shouts
I’m not saying
I disbelieve you
He says
What is there
To disbelieve?
What is there
Left of me?

When I can
Still breathe
When my
Chest
Has stopped
Seizing
When I have
Woken still
On the floor
Because
Once more
I could not
Face
The bed

Then
When,
Then
You can
Judge me
wanting.
I could not..
I failed

D’you want us
To investigate?!
He yells
Crack of dawn
Me, broken
Again
Are you
going
to co-operate?!
He interrogates
My broken body
My broken sobs
“Yes”
I say

No

“No,” is not a word
These men
Like this
Can take
Yes,
No
It’s the same
To them

No! a stifled scream
Woman
Held within,
Crushed
Like my music
That stopped.
Like the blood
That ceased
Flowing
From my womb
That day,
The day
He
invaded
My everything
With his hard
Calloused being

Determined
His
Hard
His erection
That did not
Care for
My feeling
My pain
My screams
on repeat
Like a rhythm
My fear,
His aphrodisiac

My fear
My stillness
My quaking,
His opportunity

He laughs at
My terror
My horror
My sickness
My devastate.
My room
That swims
Before his
Realisation
Of Sudden fun
In all this
Premeditation
Now
Protection off,
Protection gone
The chance
To force pregnancy
against
Everything
I believe

Now
He knows
he truly
discovered
The essence
Of me

“I’d better not
intimidate you”
He’d said
Yesterday,
My timidity
A station
Where he could park
His things
His anger
His directions
His misogyny
His pornographic dream

Control,
Demands.
Blindness
To my rising despair

He vents
His demons
Hatred
He tried
To bury them
Deep inside me
As he could squeeze..
Intimate
As could be

We cannot compare it
To the personal trauma
That rages through veins
Pistol fire across my boundaries
What he did
Broke me apart
The pieces of shattered me
Cracked open
For everyone to see
Everywhere I turn
the perpetrator’s friends
What’s next? Public humiliation?
Men like him
Are judge and jury

No locks changed
No alarms
Can make me feel safe
He may come back again one day
The depth of this fear
I cannot explain..

Afterwards
he wrote me
a letter which says
“I felt I was
abandoning
you to a fate
Worse than death”
Like a prophecy
A hex

Try talking therapy, they say
Are you joking?
As if I didn’t do that anyway
A prison
I cannot escape
While he
Walks free
Every day
From this war crime

I, still being tried
Still justifying
Still unable
To adequately explain
To fully comprehend

©GS
3 April 2017

They say rape is used as a weapon of war. I want to acknowledge that sexual violence is a very real war on women and girls in world wide culture, right here and now. And of course on the men and boys who have also been subjected to this dreadful act. We hear you too. To understand that this crime takes your soul and rearranges it into little shattered pieces. It takes your sexuality and drives a dagger through it. It takes your self esteem and screws it up and throws it away. It takes your former life and throws it out of the window. If you are still standing, sitting or even lying down and still breathing after that, you are a true survivor. Even if you think no one hears you, I hear you. Other survivors hear you. reach out and try to find. Never give up. People love you Xxx ©GS

Rain.org US rape crisis .800.656.4673
UK National rape crisis 0808 802 9999
Contact your sexual assault referral centre
SARC (or London Haven)
http://www.facebook.com/girlsurvivor

Photo with thanks to Christopher Campbell
#RapeSurvivor #MyBody #Myvoice #MyBodyisAWarZone #WeBelieveHer #WomensLivesMatter

He Drinks

October 12, 2017October 16, 2017 by Girl Survivor ♥ 2 Comments

He drinks
To blot things out
So he can shout
So he can hurt
To give him confidence in a crowd
To stop him feeling shy
So he can look a woman in the eye
To give him something
To hold in his hand
To feel like a big man
To smell of alchohol
So you can taste stale beer
So you can feel sick when he comes near
So you can know fear
So you can be afraid to shed tears
So you can be in a refuge for a year
So he can express his love
So he can show his hate
So he can cry when it is too late
So he can see your body shake
So he can eat and have his cake
So he can watch your heart ache
So he can justify his mistakes
To give him an excuse for what he did
and when he flips
So he can say he’s sorry it was just a blip
So you can blame something else when he hits
So he can get you to help him quit
So he can go into a jealous fit
So he can be hyped up
He can be a jealous nut
So he can be the absolute pits
So he can beat you with same old schtick
Bruise your skin that never did grow thick
Despite you know he’s a total prick
And what he says doesn’t mean shit
And no one understands
Why you put up with it
Every time he comes near you, you feel sick
He drinks and drinks
You pray it will end
It will change
So he can come into your room in a rage
It’s up to you to calm him or he’ll make you pay
Doesn’t matter what you say
What you gave
It’s up to you to save
To give him immunity
So he can rape with impunity
He drinks
He didn’t think
So he can say
It was just the drink

©GS

#HeDrinks #GirlSurvivor #Abuse #Consent #Woman #RapeSurvivor

Rise

October 9, 2017November 22, 2017 by Girl Survivor ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Rise
From the ashes of my broken relationships
From the devastation of my rape
From the obliteration of men’s hate
From the accusations of privilege
by way of my perceived race
Rise from my woman’s place
On the receiving end of men’s hate
On the receiving end of men’s sex
As if I had no other purpose
But to serve their appetite I was born to sate

Rise from their mistakes
The ones for which they
Are never accountable

Rise away from my home
Of seven years
I am just supposed to up and leave like
Sand and mud
He displaced
With the hatred of his rape
With
the so- called witnesses
the neighbours
the friends of his
who mocked
My grief
who lied to police
Tried to silence
My cries for help
My pleas to keep
The perpetrator away
Just from my door
I didn’t ask for more

The outrage
That a man
Should have to do jail time
For anything
In this sham
They call the
Justice system
The criminal injustice of them
The way it is weighted in favour of men
Who can remove women from juries who judge them
Where they have peers as policemen
Laughing at my injuries
Sneering at my rape
Mocking my distress
Revelling in their own hate
Watching my face
For signs of shame

Their anger and rage
When I stared right back
Proud as ever
Met their eyes
Like a challenge
Instead of bowing my head
I look at them
and even a man that stupid
could read my mind

You didn’t do your fucking job
And you know it
You are a disgrace
And you know it
You are a perpetrator of hate
And you know it
You probably did the same thing
to your own wife
Last night
Why
Just this morning
I can see it in your eyes
The guilt crystallised
In you fury
Your rage

You blast me from your side
Of the sapphire unit desk
You’re leaning over
Your nearly in my face
Your fat neck
Straining at your collar
The outrage
That a woman
stood up to you
The audacity.
No cctv
Tell me again
Why police never installed cctv in any of these
Places?
Where people die and are assaulted and are bullied and abused
The victims never leave or leave with injuries
While police walk away with impunity

Otherwise why you mocking the actions upon me of this guy
Why you working on the sexual offences unit?
mentality of
a sexual offender,
I mean how else do you explain your contempt of my gender?
you don’t give a shit about my trauma

Your shouting at me to listen to your voice over mine
When you were hired to crack this crime
The crime of drowning out the voices of females
Using our bodies
Then claiming it was our desire
How do I rise
From the ashes of this fire?
This funeral pyre
This fate worse than death
Which he, the rapist told police
he said yes
he wrote that her in a letter yes
within hours of his

supposedly consensual sex
that left me with injuries internally and
to
my pelvis
my neck
my psyche
my life
straight after his email read:
“I felt I was abandoning you
to a fate worse than death itself”
He said he wrote that- hell
“Detective Inspector” said
” We don’t know what it means.
We didn’t ask him.
It means nothing- less:
It is nothing”
The police meeting
about my rape
That was like attending an
Inquest into my own death

Rise rise
How do I rise
From this?
But I will
And you know I will
I don’t know how I will
But you know my will
and you and I know
I will

Months of prisoner in my own home
Afraid to go out
Just to get food
I’d rather not go out at all
Than go out dishevelled with
My head bowed
That is how proud

I stayed quiet all that time now
This
is how loud

Still
I could not stand
So I fought lying down
Sitting at my desk
Crying down the phone
You didn’t help me
So I fought alone
You try to crush me
But I kept going
You shout me down
So I put it in writing
You ignore my letters
So I wrote poems
You bin them
So I put them on the internet and
Share them
I linked up with other women
Who went through the same thing
were treated the same way
Here I am again
To hold a mirror to your face
your disgrace
And you
see your own betrayal

You couldn’t reduce this
To something just for
Your thrill

drawing specially for Girl Survivor, by Miek Goris,

#DontbeSilenced #BreaktheSilence #Rise #RapeSurvivor

My Voice

October 5, 2017February 14, 2023 by Girl Survivor ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

My voice has almost completely gone from trying to make myself heard over people drowning me out – in acute pain and very husky – so many officials on power trips – and average people full of their own importance reminding me I am small – throat on fire – and I’m not even ill- though yes, tired. Trauma throat – Rape is a crime of a woman’s voice being drowned out – and this is no clearer indication in speaking out, or reporting and how you are treated / that this is part of a culture – that continues to try to silence and belittle victims and survivors who speak out.
©GS

This was my voice before- I hope it comes back

Photo with thanks to Christopher Campbell

How

October 5, 2017February 14, 2023 by Girl Survivor ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

How do I get rid of shame that
Seeps into every pore
How do I believe when they say
It wasn’t your fault
How do I not blame myself
For even taking your call
How do I stay the same when I’m so appalled?
How do I find the will to try
To stay alive at all
How do I stop crying
Tears of anger
And humiliation
That one man was able
To overpower me despite
Making clear my situation
No sexual touching
I said I didn’t believe you
Could be after
Just one thing
Now I see men on the street I feel fear
Disgust
I could not fight off your lust
How will I ever again
How can I trust?
The ground shakes and sinks beneath my feet
So often I can’t find the will to eat
It was last year I last had quality sleep
And yet his friends protect him
Til the end
Police are harsh abrupt and suspicious of my every
Word
And fail to follow leads that could end in one guy doing bird
Stupidest thing you ever heard
The idea a man should take responsibility for doing his worst
He perpetrated from hell this hurt
All of his internal dirt
He flushed upon me
And into me
Without a second thought
He planned it all to his last move
Catch in me unawares
I screamed in pain
He didn’t care
He took hold of me at my sweetest most vulnerable right in there
I should have recognised his penetrating stare
Pressed his way
Into my house
And took everything
Everything
I really thought he wouldn’t dare
before introducing himself as someone who did
How now do I still live
How now do I still sing
Not like a caged bird
a human being
How?

©GS
🦋

Un numb

October 2, 2017February 14, 2023 by Girl Survivor ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Un numb
Undone
Succumb
Come

Now that I am un numb
How things run
Keep on going and
I’m still young
Everything
Under the sun
I tried to push him off
But he weighed a ton
I could not move and
I could not run
How do you prove when
You had no gun
You shout out loud
But no one come
It was dark in there
There was no sun
No sun
Now that I am un numb
I tried to stop it
But the feelings come
I cry and cry
My tears they run
No one care about the things he
Done
He run around free as a bird he run
The detectives treat him like he
Their own son
They don’t care about the things he done
They say it’s tough but we can’t help you hon
You have to fend for yourself
Like you should have done

The only one telling the truth

the survivor
since her youth

GIRL SURVIVOR

Don't be Silenced

Month: October 2017