Why is it so difficult to say the truth, So what if they don't believe me, Why can't I trust myself, when I am the one who experienced...

good morning, your honor. i wanted to thank you for being here this morning. although you’re here as an impartial party, i appreciate you...

An Interview with Robyn Mazur, Executive Director of Joyful Heart Foundation The Joyful Heart Foundation came to life after actor Mariska...

The Session “So, are you ready to tell me about it?” Actually, I wasn’t. I would prefer to never talk about it. But it had come up in our...

Dancers Workshop When I studied with the experimental dance pioneer Anna Halpirn, she was dancing with a colostomy bag. I was 20; she was...

Doubts There are nights when I stand under the shower head feeling the hot water expand my hair and wondering if you knew what you were...

Girls with Red Flowers One cradles a bowl of red flowers, her nipples the same deep rose as the blooms. Tahiti is hot— we women may all...

Leave All Behind There you stood staring into the mirror thinking you were alone, but you weren’t, I was standing before you, peering...

In Silent Shadows Increasing in intensity Nightmares and Screams because the Instigator will not Let up Enclosing and Never stopping with...

My Father's Eyes “That dress really brings out the color of your eyes,” the sales girl told me as I stepped out of the dressing room. It...

Reclaim This body knows brands where brutality breeds. A process plans to split my legs like mayo marinated on a sandwich. Futile...

Eyes I’ve looked into the eyes of evil, Dilated, black pupils, Erasing earth brown, As he shoved the pill, Into my mouth, And held me...

House of Shame A letter to my body: For years you’ve played protector Shielded me from a truth that our twelve-year-old brain couldn’t...

I Was Swallowed by a Beam of Light Some say you were a plane, a flare, a mirage. / At first barely visible in the sky /but then your...

Inside the Silence Laying naked in this bed on my back, I tilt my head, and I look down with so much pain in my face. This is the third...

An Open Letter To My Fellow Survivors* You are not the house of horrors trauma built inside of you They tried to fit us into cheap hotel...

Photograph of Two Sisters We were like glass and he broke us we were open as water fine as milkweed and he damaged us. I can see it in...

A Discussion with Simaza Sadek, Director of YWCA Northern New Jersey’s healingSPACE In a recent conversation, Simaza Sadek, who is the...

by Carolyn Keller, LMSW, DSW Sexual violence can have physical, psychological, and emotional effects on survivors. As the mind works to...

Low Pile Fragments The words are plucking right there at my teeth crowded inside standing nervously like nape hairs that have known Fear...

Dissociation You are the master of your own reality. What you see, hear, feel, what you know is all based on what you believe is the...

My children fight like puppies. They bite, they goad, they test. My neighbor teaches me to make an o with my thumb and pointer and press;...

On becoming a parade float What would it feel like to live like he had never touched you? To live like he had never lived at all? To...

The Hard Way You never know people till they die you gingerly page through their privacy Those fresh, fateful photos: mothers in mauve...