Survivor Stories – April M.D. Resnick

Nothing Poetic (#emptychair edit)

I was raped when I was 8
Grabbed, threatened, and invaded
So many times
When I should have been safe
There is nothing poetic here
They always call us crazy
They always deny and say we lie
I was called a “stupid victim”
By a “smart” Buddhist thinker
He called my memories, “illusions”
And the flashbacks, “only thoughts”
Symptoms he assigned, “my fault”
Nothing new, this sanity assault
I know he’d be more comfortable
If I locked it in my body vault
But I will not!
My brutal honesty does not mean
That a victim lives inside of me
I simply tell the awful truth
Of what he did, of the abuse
Of how I was once victimized
And he did! I was a child!
And now I fight, and I am loud
And I heal, and it is all real
And I say proudly, THIS IS ME
I’ll sit in that #emptychair quite openly
Because brutes and blind society
Will not scare or silence me
Ever again
-a.r.