See yourself thru my eyes,
I wish I could always
See myself thru yours,
One who loves you
and adores what
You think are your flaws
©GS
#AnnaJuliet #LoveYourself #GirlSurvivor #BeYourOwnBestFriend
#NeverGiveUp #YouAreBeautiful #YouAre Enough #YouRock
Just as you are.
♥GS
Am I finished
Have I lost who I was?
Am I gone
Was I cut up?
I don’t make sense any more
Can you see me
Am I whole?
Do you think less of me
Am I human
Do I have a soul still?
Am I shattered
Am I defiled
Am I soiled
Am I barren
Am I devastated
Have I lost my desirability?
My mojo
My zest
My attraction
My sweetness
My light?
My music
For so
Many months
I could not touch my own body
After rape
Have they bled me dry
Did he finish me?
Waste me
Did he succeed
To violate me to
Oblivion?
Space.
Am I in a graveyard
Am I gone?
Could you still
Love me like
This,
Do you, still, could
You?
Could you take me in
Your arms and
Not see the damage?
What do you see?
I said
Do you think less of me?
You said,
Because of what happened? No
If anything I think more of you.
How can this be ?
Sometimes I think
Am I charity
Am I worthy?
Can I say, I love you
Am I less?
Am I equal
Can I be?
Can I find peace after
This devastation
Am I allowed to ?
Why did I have to go through this?
A perpetrator can’t do time, no
He can leave destruction in his wake
And no one disturbs his day
He never faced prison
Did he even take a day off work?
No hospital
No examination room
No prophylactic drugs given
Too late
No waiting for results of HIV
No racking your brains for where to live safely
How to live in fear
How to avoid every man who comes near
Now that I can’t even look one in the eye
Did I die?
What about my time
Am I a whore?
Marked
Why did I go through
This punishment?
No one could save me
Why did I deserve this year of
exile to hell?
After something someone chose
To do
and silenced
Stonewalled
You, my trusted friend,
You sat there with me
Listening
When I cried
You sometimes said nothing
You believed in me
When I thought
I had already died
You held onto me when
I spoke out
I objected
That an assailant’s desires
And anger came
Before my rights
Before mine
Override everything I had.
They can take a woman
And just dismiss her
Say she wanted what he just took
Doesn’t even count that she said
No
She Is injured and devastated
Throwing up, bleeding
and she was
Celibate
Yes
You were the first one to say
“Guys who do this,
Why should it be
Kept a secret?”
You drove me
Down to the sea
Sit quietly
While I weep
All this, can you
Stomach it
Is it part of me?
I won’t dump it on you
But where does it go?
I feel like you helped me shovel it away
All that shit that covered me
And doesn’t belong on me
Or anywhere here
But leaves it’s smear
How do you look me in the face,
Eat breakfast with me?
Sip coffee
Put your arms around me?
Tell me you’re proud
Let your cat climb on me
Let him loose with me
Tell me you trust me
Play music with me
Cry with me
How do you do these things?
Let me in your house
Even when you’re out
These things mean a lot
I wake in the night
Aching for you
And something I never tell you
It doesn’t go away
When I realise
And I’m still
Cut up inside
There were moments of peace
where I felt truly alive still
With you I can breathe
I feel free
I think, can I, how can?
Would you
Could you
©GS
#AnnaJuliet #GirlSurvivor #BelieveHer #BreaktheSilence
I wrote this about post trauma stress- if you’re a survivor. take care reading- big hug to you xx
When every dream is a nightmare
Every time I close my eyes
I see horror
I see violence
There is no space for peace
Every time I lie down
I remember
I feel forever
What happened that night
Like a pattern
I can’t deny
My cries like gulls cries
Embedded in the air
like the ghost of me
still. always will
haunt this place
Those who turned away
So many
Who called their names as friends
Melted away or ran
Or said their time
Was so precious
They could not spare a drop
To drop by
When I was on my knees
Begging for please
Help me please
They could walk away
So easily
Always so busy
I said
What did I do
Forgive me
It’s hard for you
But look look I live it
Please look I
Survived it
Please
You say you look at me and see
The damage he did
The blood he shed
You hear my screams
Like the screams of the dead
Even if I joke and laugh
You see
The sadness in my eyes
The very sadness
This haunted sadness
The assailant criticised
Where I tried to look happy
Satisfied
To satisfy him
To avoid his anger
after
So it replays
Like it was
today
He looks at me strange
As if to say
What’s wrong with you
Bitch
Don’t you know I just
Fucked you over
Do you like it weird
Fucked up vampire sex
Is that what you like
Do you do you?
Where are my clothes?
Pick up my pants!
He yells at me
After the rape
After the devastate
When it was already
Too late
He had already
Showed his hate
His contempt
His distaste
I couldn’t face
There was no escape
Whichever way
Only damage and pain
I had to take
the path of the least resistance
The one that looked the least
Pain only it was that
Led me to hell
He set a trap
In a split second he knew
Me so well
Found my weaknesses
In one glance
Saw vulnerability
Like a main chance
Meds on liquor plus
Must use viagra to
enhance
His aggression
His altered state
A 55 year old performance
To concrete dominance
Swearing pornographic words
To keep his erection
A weapon of only
Pain
Forced from a desire
Only to hurt
Pleasure only
To demean
As he assaulted me
I lay
Dumbstruck
But for my screams
My wordless cries of
Pain
Shame and
Horror
The policewoman asked
Me what did you scream
Are there words to
A scream
Of shock and pain
Hurt and disbelief?
It was like hot iron
thru my deepest
Inside skin
This is what I mean
When I say
Pain
He shouted at me when I cried
Tears of fear and bewilderment
He shouted
Is that a pattern with you
And men
Is that a pattern with you
You argue?
I said no
Til I could not say no any more
Does that make it
Not rape any more?
Consent is not fear
Petrification
He taking me to the gates of
My worst nightmare
Drove me through
And left me there
He wrote me in the hours
Afterwards I was still
At the hospital he
Said I felt
I was abandoning you
To a fate worse than death
Yes
You were
Please
Abandon me
All I want is
For you
Never to return
That is all I fought for
Ever since you came
In and declared war
I looked
For a place of safety
I ran straight back
Into the hands
Of the perpetrator
or the friends of his who
brought him and covered for
him here
There was no escape
In this place I called home
Every time
I came up for air
I encountered another
One who didn’t care
Just another
Nightmare
Rescue me
From this never ending
Nightmare
© GS
♥💖
💖 You don’t have to rise above anything
Photo with thanks to Ali Gnone
#PostTraumaStress #PTSD #RapeSurvivor #GirlSurvivor #IBelieveYou #AnnaJuliet
#NoMore #NotAlone #BreakTheSilence #DontBeSilenced #MyBody #Woman #AbuseSurvivor #PostTraumaStressInjury
💖 You don’t have to rise above anything
When all the misfits
Come together
and speak about feeling apart
When all of us
Say what is in our heart
We make truth
We make art
Even when
everything is gone
You feel weak
you carry on
You are courageous
You are strong
Speak out
Or don’t speak out
It is up to you
it’s your shout
You owe nobody
Your story
Your account
Your words
Your report
You know
You can share
or not share
what you survived
You’re amazing
You are enough
You are here
through all the fear
and all the doubt
all the pain
all the hell
when you thought
you’d never see
the other side
Realise
what you’ve achieved,
You’re alive
©GS
If you feel like an outsider, trust me, you are not alone. You belong. You deserve to be heard. If you have been ostracised for speaking out, or told off because you didn’t- or how, or when you did, I salute you- for still being here and keeping going as best you can. You are immense. Nobody has the right to diminish you. Survivors’ healing is impaired by the bullying we can experience when most of all we need support- You should expect to be listened to and treated with respect and care. You don’t have to put up with being shouted at, mocked , doubted or harassed when you reach out. Women and girls’ accounts and reports matter- It’s time we demand our voice has equal place, in this system that has silenced us for so long. ©GS
Photos with thanks to Zukuri and Constance Keenan
“You don’t have to rise above anything” .. kind comment from activist and poet Musa Owkonga
#WhenalltheMisfits #BreakTHeSilence #GirlSurvivor #RapeSurvivor #MeToo #BelieveHer #NoMore
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
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
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
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
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
Why oh why?
That is why
You try so hard
To crush my will
©GS
drawing specially for Girl Survivor, by Miek Goris,
#DontbeSilenced #BreaktheSilence #Rise #RapeSurvivor
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
GIRL SURVIVOR 