Multimedia Art In Recovery

One of the most important things I learned during a period of intensive trauma recovery after being violently attacked a few months ago, was how important it was to continue to speak my truth and express myself. Here are a couple of art pieces and poems that reflect my cathartic pain release as well as my reclamation of autonomy and strength after someone attempted to take that all away.

SEX DOLL

He shows insecurity in the way he speaks,

Touches, orders her around- his eyes,

She is nothing more to him than dust,

A speckle on his shoe, a stain sticking,

A pretty thing, half-life already ticking. 

She sits in the middle of a broken halo,

His uncle’s ka-bar knife from war pointed,

A tail-plug, a bottle of purple lube-

I’m like all of you, she thinks, an object.

She is torn apart from the inside out, 

Scraped up, bruised, bloody, crying,

When she says she thinks she’s dying,

He doesn’t stop brutalizing his dolly,

No ownership of herself, she’s caged,

The jingle on her neck a reminder of place,

Recognizing the space she once escaped, 

Drowning for freedom, flowing out of a box,

Bloody plastic lips prolapse, her innocence lost.

DEATH CURL

cant sit up it hurts too much gotta lay down but i dont want to be in the space he ate chips in my bed lay sideways but not with my back towards the door what if he comes in and not the other side because there are windows there i have to chop the knots out of my hair i cant fight him off he has knives big ones sharp ones and guns im bleeding i havent bled since my last period but this is different theres not that maternal smell to it this time it smells like rape the rawness of my life leaving me i cant see my pelvic bruises but the ones on my thighs breasts the color of moldy bread peeing fire burning internally tears tears torn up close curtains so he cant find me suffering like he wanted