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 rooms
and jail cells and
locked wards
of hospitals
Slapped us with labels
the same way your abuser
first slapped you across
the face
And you ceased to be you
in one skin splitting
split second
as the mind splits
to wall off the trauma
Don't bleed on the good carpet
It takes courage
to look beyond
medical records
or a prison number
and see
your own humanity
in a society
That will weaponize
your trauma
against
you
Never let you up
off your knees
Shame you back
to your abuser
Police your body
What were you wearing
Did you keep your legs shut
This is the wound of being born
woman we all
carry
this is the price to pay
for daring
to embody
Goddess
Woman
Whore
Witch
Crone
For allowing just the smallest spark
of the divine feminine
to shine through
Never stop fighting
for you
For your right
to be the bravest woman
you’ve ever
incarnated
And to see her
in all the women
you'll ever
meet
* first published by The View Magazine Summer 2022 Issue
Pretty Is A Drowning Dress
I want to take the pretty off,
prettiness is a dress
with long pockets
weighted down with rocks
and I’m walking into
the middle of a lake
lungs open and ready for a flood.
Pretty is my drowning,
what damned me.
Pretty worked me to death.
Pretty is the hands around my throat,
the saliva-soaked pillowcase stuffed in my mouth
to muffle the screaming.
Pretty is the price I pay to take up space,
to exist in this world as woman.
Pretty is the coffin they box me into,
murmuring “but she was so pretty”
as they bury me alive,
pretty mouth packed full of dirt.
The Corpse Bride
It’s closer to the year 2050
than the 1950’s
but we are still selling
sending
women into marriages
nonchalantly ushering them back
in body bags
“Why didn’t she just leave?”
I refuse to watch the news
can no longer cry on the couch at 7am
every day falling apart at the seams
listening to the rising death count
how many
mothers and daughters and wives
women
have to die before they say
the word
femicide
I’m tired of being a woman
I mean a walking
corpse
I can still feel his hands on my throat
when moving towards
romance feels
closer to a death march
than a falling in love
and almost every woman in my
life knows what it’s like
to have another woman turn to face her
and say...
“I’m so glad you made it out alive.”
me too,
me too.