Sweet Poison

Years and years of silence
Waiting to talk
To tell my story
To share what I know

But you told me to shut up
And so I did
Kept quiet
But now I'm done

I'm done listening
To your abuse
To your lies
No longer taking orders

Now I can't stop talking
Everywhere I go
It's all I do
It's all that comes out

I'm overwhelmed with an urge
To protect the young
A burning desire
To educate all

You complain that I'm poison
To your mind
With my ideas
And now you think about abuse

Inside I chuckle and laugh
It's about time
Oh and don't worry, Dad
It's what I like to call sweet poison.

If I Told You the Truth

If I told you the truth
Would you believe me?

If you heard my whole story
Could you ever face me?

When you hear I am a survivor
Do you cringe?

Do you want to know it all?
Will you tell me you believe me?

If you heard me say his name
Would you say it's not possible?

If I choose to trust you
Will I soon regret it?

When I speak about all that he has done
Will you tell me to stop telling lies?

Do you want to know the truth?
Or do you prefer a blissful ignorance?

Invisible

Just a small little girl
Standing silently
Wondering
If I scream, will they hear?

Just a small little girl
Deeply hurt
In a rage
I'm screaming, but they don't listen.

So this small little girl
Got the message
And gave up
You are invisible, they can't hear your cries.

And this small little girl
Grew older
Carrying the pain
But never sharing the burden, because she felt invisible.

She was a big little girl
Attempting to heal
From so much pain
That's when he told her these magical words

"Just because they were blind, doesn't mean you were invisible."

She was a lady
Validated
From the abuse
And the ones who let it happen while she cried out.

Family, Where Are You?

Family.
Where are you?
I've been calling.
Can you hear my cries?

I need some shelter.
Give me love.
The hate is raining down hard.
Is this what you call a tribe?

You left me alone.
My heart is broken and bleeding.
Yet your hearts, the bloodline's 

Remain frozen and cold

We've always been a tight-knit brood
Now you locked me out
Threw away the key for good
And gave refuge to the abuser.

Parents and children
Shining light and life unto another.
It seems the wind blew the candle out
And theres no life to relight it

Always a Fighter

Everyone says I'm a fighter
But no one knows my battle

Everyone knows I fight
But no one knows against whom

The time has come to tell the truth
I have been fighting half a battle

And until I stand up and commit
I will lose this fight against all of them

But its not my battle, not my choice
I must stand up and speak out

Tell the world what happens at home
When the abuse is in your own bed

For all the girls who suffered this way
For all the boys who weren't believed

For all the siblings who were pushed aside
For all the children who didn't dare speak up

I will always be a fighter
Because you deserve a voice

These Battle Wounds of Mine

If I could ask one thing
Just one simple request
That would help me heal
Don't deny my truth

When I tell you my story
Listen and listen with a whole heart
Leave your judgments behind
Because I'm showing you my battle wounds

Some of these wounds have healed
Into jagged scars, etched into my soul
Yet, some of these wounds are still open and fresh
They burn and they bleed and get infected

So when I show you these wounds
In the way of my truths
The deepest story I have to share
Please listen and don't deny what is so obviously real

Sisters

Sisters.

Those who have one
Feel blessed.
They claim to be the best of friends.

Those who don't have one.
Wish they did.
They say they missed out on growing up with their best friend.

I have a sister.
Yet, I don't feel blessed.
We are not friends, we don't even speak.

Because all that connects us is our DNA.
There is no love and connection.

Perhaps there never was.

She chose to look the other way

And protect my abuser
She chose him over me.

She knew the truth
Yet, she claimed I was lying
Because it didn't fit with her idea of happily ever after.

Sisters. They're supposed to stick by you through thick and thin.
My sister. She went running when I needed her most.
She's not my sister. She's just my parents other daughter.

Does Anyone Care?

I used to wonder
Do I matter?
Does anyone care?
What is my worth?

My family-
They have made it clear
My abusers comfort is worth more than my life

All the therapists
I saw as a child
Ignored the obvious signs of abuse and couldn't be bothered with saving me

My teachers
The school I went to
Saw me as a nuisance more than they saw my value

So many friends
Just walked away
They didn't care that I was in pain, they needed to look good for shidduchim

And now again, I wonder
Do I matter?
Does anyone care?
What is my worth?

Take Me Back

Take me back 
to innocent times
before I learned
of pain and abuse

Take me back 
and teach me
the words I need to know
what is right and what is wrong

Take me back
and hold my hand
protect me
with all you've got

Take me back
and don't leave me
until you are sure
that I will forever be safe

Take me back 
to more pleasant times
of sweetness and laughter
and lets stop the sun forever.

Gratitude

There's a silver lining

In every cloud

A rainbow

After every storm

A light

At the end of the tunnel

But most of all there's love

Love and friendship after pain

When friends and family come together

To help and protect the one they love

Its the unity

That strengthens their mission

Its the love

That combats the hatred

The beauty

That wipes away the ugliness

The good

That overtakes the bad

Its all this and more I am grateful for

Every single day

But most of all this year

Thank you for everything

Happy Thanksgiving!

Survivors

Survivors,
You're my sisters, my brothers
The ones I never had

You support me
You protect me
You empathize with me

Like they never did

You hold my hand
You lead the way
You keep me standing

And I do the same for you

Because we're brothers and sisters
Friends and supporters
Fellow survivors

You are my family that I chose
The family that I need
The family I never had

Thank you.

Dear Mom (Part II)

Mother,

They tell me about a feeling
Its something every mother feels
Its a love that knows no bounds 

Do you feel that way towards me
That even when I err
I am still your daughter
That you are the only mother I will have

I need you
To guide me
To love me
To hug me
And accept me

I've made mistakes
But haven't we all

Mother,

You tell me you hate me
You tell me I'm bad
Never good enough

You ignored the abuse
And blamed the symptoms on me
Your young child
An innocent little girl

Now you attempt to ease your guilt
By transforming me to a bad girl
In your mind

Where I am provocative
And unfaithful

Where the labels you stick on me
Are true and fit with who I am

You call me fat
Lazy and worthless
A whore, a prostitute

You wish the worst on me
On your very own flesh and blood
You campaign against me
Never at my defense

Why, mother
Why must you ignore my tears
And suffering

You turn a blind eye to my pain
Can't you see I am just a helpless girl
Trying to stay afloat

Yet you push me down
Hoping I'll drown
So you can be right
And your pride will remain intact

I hope you are happy now
I have left
Left you and your games
You and your negativity

I am free
More free than I ever imagined possible
There will be no more of your abuse tying me down

Now I am free
To soar high
And heal.

Guest Post: There and Back Again

Guest Post by Asher Lovy

It’s not easy having a relationship with God, especially if you never had a good relationship with your parents. That’s the analogy generally used when explaining the mystery of God’s plan, to a parent making decisions for their child that the child is too young to understand. Of course, children tend to rebel against their parents; it’s all a part of growing up. But they usually come back when they realize that their parents loved them all along and had only their best interests at heart. It’s a lot harder, though, when it’s God you’re dealing with, because parents respond more overtly and clearly than God does. With God, all you have is faith, and your belief that everything He does is ultimately for the best. It’s so easy to lose sight of that. 

Life had fallen apart. After months of trying to play peacekeeper between my abusive mother and me, my grandmother broke down and was hospitalized. When she left the hospital, she was severely depressed, nearly catatonic. The only way for me to get money for daily necessities was to sit with her and try to coax some emotion out of her. If I could get her to talk--to feel--then I could connect with her enough to make her understand why I needed money. I was 17 years old, hardly a trained psychologist. It was torture to have to do that every day. She would sit there telling me why she had given up on life, how everything that had happened was her fault, and how she had felt in the moment she had given up.

 I would run out afterward, after I had gotten the money I needed, and scream. Just scream. And punch the walls, and curse God and demand to know why--why I was being subjected to my life. All those years in a dysfunctional family, and then the abuse, and then having to get my heart ripped apart every day just to survive. God was torturing me and I hated Him for it. According to the Torah, the penalty for cursing God is death. Personally, I didn’t care; I wanted to die anyway. 

I went to shul every day, three times a day, but the words I was saying felt wrong on my lips. I was praying to a God who would never answer, asking for mercy I’d never receive. I choked out shacharis, mincha, and maariv through tears and sobs, and every day it got harder and harder. Eventually I stopped crying. Like a child who is told that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, I got over the fact that God wasn’t there and tried to move on with my life. Sure, I went through all the motions, but it was only because that was the life I knew. Until I found something else I could believe, I wasn’t quite ready to abandon my lifestyle. 

God was gone, and in His absence was a void. I started looking for something to fill it. First I looked for a way to maintain my beliefs in the absence of God. I had always been taught that what separated the Jewish people from the atheists and idolaters of this world was their morality. No longer believing in God made me feel amoral. I started studying moral philosophy, trying to find a way to maintain a belief in absolute morality while still eschewing the idea of absolute morality requiring a deity, or higher entity. Kant’s moral philosophy, based on the categorical imperative, appealed to me at the time, especially since it acknowledged the practical need for the idea of some higher power to exist in order to maintain any absolute truth, but allowed for no higher being to actually exist. To quote Voltaire, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” In short, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”

So I had morality, which made me feel somewhat better, but I felt something still lacking in that void left by God’s departure. My life became a war between the two sides of me, the part that wanted Judaism and the part that wanted to reject God entirely. Though I had given up on God and religion, I felt sad doing so, as if an important part of me had just been lost. I started debating anyone who would accommodate me. Usually, I would take the side of Judaism against any opposition, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was trying to convince myself as much as my opponents. Instead of feeling vindicated after winning a debate, all I felt was shameful, and frustrated. I read every hashkafa book I could get my hands on, watched every video about atheism I could find, argued about both with whomever would give me their time, and none of it helped fill that void. 

The more I searched, the more I kept seeing that there really is only one truth when it comes to belief in God: There is no proof; there is only faith. That’s what emuna p’shuta means to me now. Not blind, unquestioning faith, but the understanding that after you’ve questioned, after you’ve searched high and low for proof, all there really is, is faith. Confronted with this truth I had to decide: Do I, or do I not, believe in God? 

It’s not a question you can answer in one day, so I took my time. I sat back and examined my life as it unfolded, trying to honestly determine if I could believe in God or not. It’s always the little things. The money I would make here and there when I needed it most, the opportunities that seemed to arise from nowhere, the people who came into my life when I had no one. Little things, but to me they were signs of some divine intervention. Grudgingly I accepted the existence of God, but that didn’t put Him back in my good graces. I hated Him just as much, but I couldn’t deny His existence. I just couldn’t see any good or purpose in my suffering. 

That autumn, I wrote a draft of my memoir. Two weeks, fifty-thousand words. I barely ate or slept. After it was finished, I labored over it for a few days, correcting spelling and grammatical errors, until it was, for a rough draft, perfect. That night, I went to a FedEx store and had it printed and bound. While I knew I was supposed to be feeling elation at having accomplished something so incredible in such a short time, what I actually felt was sadness and emptiness. I nearly jumped in front of a train that night. That book had been my purpose, and there it was, in my hands, printed and bound--finished. My purpose, finished. 

On a suggestion from a friend, I started volunteering at a drop-in center for kids at risk. I felt that perhaps others could benefit from my experience. In doing so, I discovered a purpose, a silver lining, almost, to everything that had happened. I still didn’t like the process, or the fact that I had to experience any of it, but God’s purpose started making sense--the good I had been looking for was beginning to make sense. It may seem odd for me to call the fact that I have the benefit of such unfortunate experience a good thing, but, to me, there is nothing more beautiful than that first smile breaking across a face stained by too many years of crying. If my experience means that I can be the cause of that smile, then that’s the purpose--that’s the good. 

I don’t think I’ll ever understand why I was chosen for the life I was given, but I don’t think I need to know that anymore. Not yet, anyway. I will one day, after I’ve lived my life, and I move on to the next world. For now, though, I have my God, I have my purpose, and that’s all I need. Don’t get me wrong, my relationship with God is anything but easy, but it’s the fact that there’s a relationship that I enjoy so much. I feel that, after everything I’ve been through, and after losing and then finding God again, I am much closer to Him than most other people. I feel that closeness every day, and I have no doubt that God loves me. I see His kindness in my life every day. I am a proudly Orthodox Jew, and I love my God. 

A Survivor's Prayer

There was a time in my life

Not too long ago

When I protected you

And before that 

For so very long

I thought I must admire  you

That you were deserving of my respect

They said you were golden

So I must have been to blame

We are a family

Families stick together

But they neglected to mention

Families don't abuse

Families don't rape

Families don't destroy

Families don't threaten

But you did

You hurt me

You are hurting me

You act so haughty

As if you have never done wrong

You wear the garb

As if its a shield

You surround yourself with deniers

So you will never be exposed

You seem to have forgotten

That there is a God

A God who knows

A God who never forgets

You don't seem to care or be bothered

By the burden on your soul

Of the abuse you inflicted on me

You live a carefree existence

While I twist and turn in pain

Every single day

My soul will never be pure

My heart will never be whole

My nights will never be restful

My days will never be peaceful

I have learned to live a half a life

To make do with what's left of me

Will the day ever come

When the tables will be turned

When you will fear me

When you will beg for my forgiveness

I long for that day

Yet I dread that time

What will I say

What will I do

How will I feel

Only time will tell

All I can do is pray

And hope

And dream

That I am filled with peace

And acceptance

And love

Please God.

Dear Mom (Part I)

Mother,

I wanted to thank you for all you have done for me,

But I couldn't.

I wanted to remember the lessons you taught us,

But I couldn't.

I wanted to appreciate the time and money spent,

But I couldn't.

I wanted to reminisce over the fun times,

But I couldn't.

I wanted to tell you that you're the world's greatest mom,

But I couldn't.

I wanted to hug you and say I love you,

But I couldn't.

All I could do was

Remember and cry,

Devastated,

Mourning the loss

of a childhood and innocence

Corrupted and stolen,

Stunted in its prime.

All I could think about was

Your apathy,

Your negligence,

Your determination to ignore

and undermine my pain.

You insist on his innocence,

Portraying his virtues,

Making him out to be a saint.

When in reality he is not.

He hurt me,

Abused me,

Destroyed my very being.

But he is your hero,

Your rock,

You say he's perfect;

Perfectly abusive is what I say.

Mother,

I wish I could thank you

and remember the good you have done.

But all that is overshadowed

by your failure to protect me

The sweetness in our life

is meaningless.

The memories have disappeared.

And all I can remember now

is the violent abuse.

You cared more about your public image

Than the helpless child who was your very image.

And that is unforgivable.

Sincerely, 

Your seven year old daughter