top of page
Three Poems by Elizabeth Gade
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...
2 min read
Five Poems by Jean Varda
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...
3 min read
The Importance of Addressing Sexual Violence
A Discussion with Simaza Sadek, Director of YWCA Northern New Jersey’s healingSPACE In a recent conversation, Simaza Sadek, who is the...
4 min read
On Writing and Sexual Trauma
by Carolyn Keller, LMSW, DSW Sexual violence can have physical, psychological, and emotional effects on survivors. As the mind works to...
2 min read
Low Pile Fragments
Low Pile Fragments The words are plucking right there at my teeth crowded inside standing nervously like nape hairs that have known Fear...
1 min read
Dissociation
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...
4 min read
On Becoming a Parade Float
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...
1 min read
The Hard Way
The Hard Way You never know people till they die you gingerly page through their privacy Those fresh, fateful photos: mothers in mauve...
1 min read
It's Not About the Flowers
It's Not About the Flowers I grieve for my battered garden bed. But it’s not about the flowers. We recently experienced a destructive...
4 min read
In Your Mind
In Your Mind A butterfly flits through a garden The rain nourishes the grass I contemplate simple beauty While looking back at an ugly...
1 min read
24 GOSPELS OF GORE
24 GOSPELS OF GORE Twelve Japanese soldiers knacked me in wicked sequence, and twelve more filed outside my cell, donning grins of glee...
2 min read
Phantom Moon
Phantom Moon When vicious sadness lances Spears that disembowel, My soul on which pain dances Emits a silent howl. But the moon to which...
1 min read
Between a Light and Fire
Between a Light and Fire Between a light and fire arose Your buried appetite again last night I found it in a shoebox in a poem Every...
1 min read
Only a Pebble Between Us
Only a Pebble Between Us I was walking my border collie through town today in the furnace of the noon sun, heading to the park just past...
5 min read
Frankenstein’s Daughter, 1967
Frankenstein’s Daughter, 1967 Previously published in Memoir Magazine Cigarette smoke hangs thick in the kitchen of my dad’s two-bedroom...
7 min read
The Secret
The Secret The secret was to be kept at all costs. The judge said if he did it again it would mean prison. We wouldn’t want to break her...
1 min read
A Midsummer's Horror Memory
A Midsummer's Horror Memory that tiny house which once held grandma’s wonderful smells is no more it only returns from time to time in...
2 min read
What Does a Survivor Look Like?
What Does a Survivor Look Like? I'm standing in front of my mirror, a pile of clothes at my feet. I look at my reflection and try to look...
3 min read
Allaying Throes
Allaying Throes You and I, All the fallacies of young love Cliched excuses So many “firsts” Ponderings of existential dread “Why can’t...
1 min read
bottom of page