I thought I would type up a few poems I wrote years ago.
They are a little intense, but I wrote them in my darkest hours, when my life started to unravel and I started to loose control.
I'm posting them on here, because despite their pain, they show me how far I've come and how, as a person, despite thinking the worst of myself for the things I have done and the decisions I have made - I can see the journey I've been on and take great comfort in the fact I have come out the other side of it.
I wrote these poems while I was at University, I almost threw my entire academic career away. I stayed in my room, in halls, I locked the door and I didn't come out. I didn't go to seminars, I didn't go to lectures, I didn't hand in essays, I didn't do anything. I hid.
Until finally, when I cracked, I gave in and went to see my academic advisor, I poured my heart out from start to finish only to look up and see her crying too. I don't think she had ever heard such a horror story.
Young girl, goes to Uni to make her parents proud, young girl gets raped by big black man, young girl happens to be a raging lesbian and so doesn't quite know how to react to such a thing, ignores the fact it ever happened, only to collapse, end up in hospital to find out shes pregnant with said monsters child. Honestly, I think I need to get writing that book!
I couldn't tell anyone. I was ashamed, I thought I was to blame, I had my abortion, which went tits up and I spent a few days in hospital evaluating what I was going to do. So I did what Barkers do. I got up, I got dressed, I went to Uni and carried on as normal. I did that for a very long time, but burying something so big wreaked havoc on my mental heath.
So I wrote this. A poem I thought I had lost. My father dropped off a box of my belongings a few months ago, a few of my childhood momento's, a box of memories, I loved it. Until I found a few bits of paper. Just a few, that my parents had kept and filled away.
I got so angry.
They must have read them and stashed them in this box without a second thought. How?
"My shirt is in pieces,
Blood is pouring out,
But I'm silent,
I don't scream or shout.
My jeans are torn,
Seam from seam,
My eyes are stinging,
As the tears stream.
My arms are bleeding,
As they scrape the floor,
My eyes are focused,
Upon the locked door.
My hands are bruised,
From fighting so hard,
The mirror is smashed,
I wish I could reach a shard.
Id bury it deep,
And watch the red rivers run,
I'd wait until,
My vengeance was done.
My head is banging,
From your strangling,
The room spins round and round,
As you pin me to the ground.
And all is silence,
I get up and I go.
This secret will remain mine,
No-one can ever know"
I know people deal with this sort of thing more often that we dare to think about.
My own partner almost fell foul of a similar situation in the middle of Manchester city centre, if I had not been there to fight the man off, he would have dragged her off and carried out his intention.
I know she struggles with it on a daily basis, she has a fear she doesn't talk about and it's a sad story that I can empathise with her and I can understand how she feels, and when I hold her I know she lost a piece of herself that day, just as I did years before. But we move forward together.
I have a friend, I love her dearly, she was hurt, destroyed, went to court, sent the bastard away for a long time and we are so proud of her for doing it. Her ghosts linger just the same, I offer to walk her home because I know the dark streets haunt her, and she's never quite sure.
You see, we all live with it, every single day, in a different way.
For me, I try to forget, but its hard. As a gay woman, to endure something like that and have the concequences of a pregnancy whilst trying to get through University, it almost killed me.
My parents found out about my abortion because I got sick, and they were so mad, so angry. I lied to them, I told them it was a drunken one night stand and I'd made a mistake because I didn't feel like they deserved to know the hurt in me. They never asked, they didn't care, they only found out about it through my court case when my barrister told the court, read out the doctors letter
This blog is my way of reaching out to people, I know, from the responses I have had so far, there are people out there struggling with similar issues. It's hard, I know that. Don't give up. These things that happen, hurt like hell, and they steal moments of our lives we can't get back, the only way to erase them, put them behind us, is to make bigger, better, happier moments. Don't waste your life on something you had no control over. The only real loss is if you let things like that steal moments from today, tomorrow, don't let it. Grab life by the proverbial balls and run with it. Positives will always win out. I choose my life. I choose my happiness. I know I can do it, and I know you can too <3
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