SURVIVORS’ TRUTH
LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SHARE YOUR TRUTH
SB: Someday I’ll forgive them, the bystander’s that failed to come to my rescue when there was nothing left for me to do but lay there praying that he wouldn’t kick me again.
SS: Everyday you made sure I knew my place. Everyday you made sure I’d regret living today more than I did the day before. Everyday you’d tell me how stupid and careless, how ugly and lazy, how uneducated and worthless I am. You had me convinced that all of that was true until people who love me helped me to realize that the only one who felt that way about me was YOU.
NJ: I had to call the cops when the violent attacks on me came from my former wife. She spat on me, she aggressively attacked me verbally and physically. She was arrested. Our divorce was contested but finally I was Free except sometimes I’m at a Poetry reading or out with my children eating, and out of nowhere I see her there.
Abused Men take their secrets to their graves, not realizing how many lives could be saved if they would just SPEAK THEIR TRUTH.
EF: Concealed, like the violence we tucked away when we left home for church like a good Christian family. Concealed like me, shaking on the floor behind my bedroom door for hours, feeling as Dead as I was going to be when that wooden baseball bat hit the wooden door so loud that suddenly Secrets weren’t the loudest things in our house anymore and neighbors no longer thought of us as “Good Christians.”
MC: Eleven years ago, the abuse began. He lured me to his room without lifting a hand. I was only eight, how could I have known that he was going to touch me let alone take off my clothes. Eight years the abuse went on, I began to realize that this was wrong. I begged him to stop. I asked what would it take? He said, “Well if not you, your little sister would be great.”
AH: You said I was beautiful. Is that why you wouldn’t stop when I said No. Your hands around my throat coking me, I’m crying trying to make you let go of me. Now I don’t want to beautiful, I’d rather be Invisible.
GG: You thought you broke me, but you are NOTHING and I’m still ME, Strong, Blessed, Beautiful, Trauma Free, Unbroken and Blissfully Happy.
Excerpts taken from Purple Poetry 2016 Edition by TurnAround,Inc.
