Gender-Based Violence has become a scary reality for a large number of South Africans. When awareness grew for the crisis last year I wrote this short poem on what it feels like to be abused at the hands of a partner.
I am terrified.
Life is a very scary place once you have succumbed to the hands of harsh men who meant you harm. Abused and sexually violated. I can’t imagine how scary it looks after being raped, after having someone try to take away your dignity and your honour in the most intimate and personal way.
The piece of your soul which they attempt to steal while they defile you, humiliate you, dominate you. After someone abusively does this to you, you struggle to see the light in each new day. As you turn each corner you wonder if you are looking into the eyes of an abuser, the eyes of a rapist, because they don’t walk around with a badge of their demoralising honour.
They often hide it behind their ‘kind’ smile tainted with deceit, their helpful gesture, their lies, their veiled jokes, their acceptance of their friends’ behaviour. Men have such a careless abandon when they approach women. I wonder what it feels like to not worry if the next man I meet or greet will be my next violator. I am terrified.
Just remember, it does get better, as long as you commit to healing and remind yourself that letting go of past traumas benefits yourself. Forgiving does not mean that the perpetrator gets a load off their conscience, it means that you allow yourself to let that load off your shoulders. And most importantly, forgive yourself. After all that you have been through, you deserve to be forgiven.
I don't know what it feels like to be raped and I wanted to try capture what a women may have felt after being humiliated and demoralised by a rapist:
He undressed my soul with his hate
He laughed at my naked vulnerability
Then he left me to die slowly
- A letter from the grave
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