Speaking out

So many women suffer in silence.

Suffer this weight, this heaviness that was placed upon us.

No you may not speak of this.

It is dirty, shameful, sinful.

We must not speak of it.

So we’re chained up in this silence.

Not daring to break free because of the fear.

Fear of being cast out, rejected, shamed.

That we are not fellow human beings worth of respect.

But objects, to be used and discarded.

These chains of silence are so heavy.

They constrict our airways and block up our throats.

Squash our voices and still our tongues.

Muting our dreams and desires.

For we must now focus our energy on getting through each day.

On surviving.

Yet we are bursting to be free of it, suffocating under this weight.

This pain that we’re told we must carry around inside of us.

That our bodies are no longer our bodies.

They have been tainted, disrespected, violated.

We are made to feel vulnerable, frightened and afraid.

Disempowered.

Perhaps before we would have spoken out.

Now we are silent.

Now we carry this shame as a lead ball within our chest.

A dark heavy greyness that fills us, weighing us down.

It may manifest itself physically as headaches, backache or cramps.

But most of all it is heavy, the thing around our neck.

This coercion and control which stoppers our voices and dampens our spirit.

Prevents us from carrying on, speaking up, moving forward.

For a while we are in limbo, unable to move on.

One step forward and two steps back.

Our past tries to drown us, drag us sideways, downwards.

Stifling our needs and desires.

To feel inside that something has broken.

Shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

Spinning off into an endless abyss.

But that yes with time, these pieces can be picked up and begun to be put back together.

And yes with time these cracks will begin to fade

And slowly this weight across our chest will ease

So it is a process, a balancing act.

A journey without a specific destination in mind

Perhaps the destination is to break the silence.

To speak out, speak up.

To face our fear.

To move further along the spectrum of victim to survivor.

Now we can begin to reclaim spaces that were taken from us.

To confront the fears we have kept hidden for so long.

Slowly we can begin to feel whole again.

And slowly the thing around our neck begins to loosen.