Shelves contain simultaneously
Stillness and clutter
Pieces picked
Shelves contain simultaneously
Stillness and clutter
Pieces picked
Midnight, Monday 15th October is the deadline for submitting art/writing/poetry, this is an important, very timely project at a critical stage in history, your voices need to be heard! Previously published work you hold the copyright permissions on, are acceptable.
Please add your voice.
The story: Bruised But Not Broken, Whisper and the Roar, Indie Blu(e), and Blood Into Ink are joining forces to publish an anthology about the lived experience of sexual harassment and assault. We believe that it is more important than ever before that more voices speak out and reclaim their strength by owning their survival stories. All contributors, female and male, can submit up to three pieces of creative work- these can include; Poetry, Prose, Essay, Short Fiction, Prose, or original Artwork, but should be limited in length (under 1,000 words) considering that this is an anthology. You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider nonacceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.
Writers and artists will retain the publishing rights to their individual submitted pieces. Indie Blu(e) will retain the rights to the collection We Will Not Be Silenced.
Pieces accepted for the Anthology may be used in whole or in part to promote the Anthology. All writers and artists will be appropriately credited in all promotional materials.
Should the royalties from sales of the Anthology exceed the costs of publishing and promoting the Collection, 70% of the royalties above these costs will be donated to organizations that support survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Midnight, Monday 15th October is the deadline for submitting art/writing/poetry, this is an important, very timely project at a critical stage in history, your voices need to be heard!
Bruised But Not Broken, Whisper and the Roar, Indie Blu(e), and Blood Into Ink are joining forces to publish an anthology about the lived experience of sexual harassment and assault. We believe that it is more important than ever before that more voices speak out and reclaim their strength by owning their survival stories. All contributors, female and male, can submit up to three pieces of creative work- these can include; Poetry, Prose, Essay, Short Fiction, Prose, or original Artwork, but should be limited in length (under 1,000 words) considering that this is an anthology. You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider nonacceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.
Writers and artists will retain the publishing rights to their individual submitted pieces. Indie Blu(e) will retain the rights to the collection We Will Not Be Silenced.
Pieces accepted for the Anthology may be used in whole or in part to promote the Anthology. All writers and artists will be appropriately credited in all promotional materials.
Should the royalties from sales of the Anthology exceed the costs of publishing and promoting the Collection, 70% of the royalties above these costs will be donated to organizations that support survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
The slow bow of a cello
scraping across strings
reverberation in loss
if her face betrayed
all the pain inside
if her face was a building it would collapse
where the ravage and gaps exist
you cannot see
all the times she’d been
pealing back her expressions one by one
a window without covering
someone sitting at a table
running her bare empty hands along the scarred wood
fingers without rings without bonds
falling against the door frame
hearing the echo
feeling the pain reach in and pull
until only music sounds
the songs we danced to when I was whole
believing what didn’t kill you
made you stronger
then how is it since you
tore out my heart and shredded it
with all the words you gave me over the years
like confetti
I have not been able to stand
without collapsing
I am now set at an angle of grief
you say oh in time all things heal
that must be your experience
maybe when you said you were honest with me
you weren’t honest with yourself
and what would destroy a mortal man
does not get too deeply embroiled
you are after all
by your own omission
someone capable of closing yourself off
feeling nothing
I would that I had learned that art
it may be a month
or ten
but I will stand here again
grief will mark my place
as if no time had passed and no lifting assuaged
the heartache of your betrayal
what can I do to change the outcome
looking down the road and seeing only hurt
I would do anything to change how I will feel
but you have me tied to your world
even as you
leave mine
emptied of love
Family
Can be a nest of vipers
The greatest joy
An empty glass
The pain you feel when it matters most
Strangers
The best of times
The cruelest cut
A Sunday
Morning
Before the squirrels are out
You leave the house you grew up in
The walls and plaster and wood of it
Walking fast into town
Empty ships, last night’s slips
A faint odor of terpentine
The market stalls are bare awaiting their traders
Sun is hardly met in sky
You don’t know why
You escape the warmth to be in the cold
Where things unsaid ring truer
In the little park off by the church
Horse chestnuts have fallen
Ivy grows lush
Statues keep their secrets
And imported flowers are red among the green
Like Spanish dancers
You remember
The hollow feeling
And the times it wasn’t
The whoop and rush of emotion
Now you are older and still you are that child
The theatre stands unmanned
All the actors washing their sins
Up to their elbows in suds
He has taken his bike along fastest route
You met here before
Maybe you were twelve
The doorways are the same
The ship fronts have changed names
But still he smells of Autumn and old books
Still his large hand covers yours
And you are the child again
Running from the pain
Dazzled by the jewels of the city
Looking in windows
Seeing this time
Two reflections
I outgrew myself, watching stillness
Now I am
Blanketed in straining waistlines
An unusual feeling that thrums my vanity
Like a badly played guitar
Because wasn’t I the girl who refused to change?
And then there was the road and its damage
I walked it timid, my feet bled
I saw no end
I may
Regain the attitude of the untouched
In due course
As memory befuddles
Twins of angst and fear
For the soft skin of recovery is a mockingbird
She sings hopeful
Strikes down what I took for granted
The old me
Always the same size and circumference
Thinking she was invulnerable
Now she trembles slightly
If her stomach lurches
When it slaps suddenly, the salve of indomitable
You spend as much time picking up the pieces
Of what you thought safe and sound
Anxiety is your friend in the search
For that girl you were before
Now I can’t fit into myself
I don’t know who remains
But if you’ll lend me enough to purchase
A replacement …
Surely this is the year
We put our skins of fear aside
They are already well flayed and comfortable to wear
And step into
Shoes that do not yet fit
But if we hold on
Shaking in place
Tempted to turn and run
Back to the oppressive we know so well
If we learn to be
This new size
These new shoes
Lending us the necessary dexterity
To skip away from excuses
Vanquish the tendency
To think we only have
One tread
One mark on this Earth
And cannot instead
Inherit the wind
We stay in that diminished moment
Growing cold though the sun shines
You have to satisfy yourself
Fill in the edges
Pick your ink
Color the world
You have to lift yourself up
Nobody else can love you as much
From the cradle to the grave
There’s one friend who won’t leave
If you learn to stop hating yourself
Movement
Is an elixir
Be it in your arms
The first time we danced
Or from your house
The last time I looked back
And as we leave pieces of ourselves
Like a photo album of torn skin
We are surely moving forward
Learning again
The lightness
Of being
She stands in the doorway
The outline of her slim shoulders
The hallway light seems peachy
She is home and without her
Home will be a strange wasteland
Where survivors cling to wreckage
Watching for her shape every night
The smell of her still on tortoiseshell hairbrush
Why didn’t she need it when she left?
How did she choose what to take and what to leave?
The only choice I was certain of
..
I was not under consideration
That need, to not need
Suffocating on duty and then
Deciding to toss it into wastebin
Along with other chains
I have carried as my own brand of perfume
She who gave me life, wanted life without me
Always did, from the first day they placed me in her arms
And she thought … oh no
It isn’t her fault
Love never arrived
But I am left alive
Yerning to matter, knowing I never will
It is a bigger part of me than I care to usually admit
A voice in the dark always crying for Mommy
I thought I’d grow up and get over it
But wherever you go, there you are
In my case, a kid whose mom didn’t want
I’m still looking at doorways
Watching for her tread
In other’s faces, a memory yet
Even as I grow older than she was
When she squeezed her heart
And despite the shared DNA
Found it held
Nothing of me
Bring might to the stage
Stop selling yourself
For pieces of flint and stone
Starting today put away childish things
Voices from the past echoing
A clamor of our downs and undoing
You’re not that clown face anymore
Not the one easily convinced you have no worth
By hellbent egotists intent on keeping you low
That you might never know
The sunlight of your parts
When arranged and strong outlast
Their fickle mercurous passions
For the fat headed go home
Take off their emperor’s clothes
Naked they see the transparency of their game
Is to their shame, their confidence relied upon
Keeping you down
Now you know
Let nobody crush your sights
There is magic in your being
They’ve been keeping quiet for fear
If you knew your worth you’d
Not need them
And their neglect of you
It’s not enough to have scraps
You are deserving
And beautiful
Now that you know
It’s impossible to be caged
By the whittling of simmering minds
Who would deny your purpose with their own agenda
Destroy the child, ruin the man
Or so it goes
Until emerging from dark the child knows
He is made of stars
Breathe deeply and have courage
Little one
For your life is equal to anyone’s
And this veil of sorrow is not your inheritance
You
Are meant
For greater purpose
Now is the time
To claim yourself
The woman’s got a switch in her head
And when she wants you dead
She reaches down
Slow cat stretch
Invisible intent
Almost like
Flicking lint
And
Presses
The
Switch