The Elimination of Violence Against Women

 

Phoebe Rudomino, “The Girl in a Room”, 2006

The Elimination of Violence Against Women

A Collection of Poetic Prose 

Trigger Warnings: Writing depicts graphic representations of sexual assault and rape, misogynistic slur and religious trauma

Dedication

For

The fathers, the sons,

the police, the pastors, the painters

the builders who whistle on the sidewalks, the teachers who tell you your skirt is too short, the teachers who look at your skirt to begin with, the bouncers, the bartenders who tell you to cover your drink, the lads in nightclubs with rohypnol in their pockets, the lads in gangs who think its powerful when they hit a woman, the little boys who think they’re cool, the little boys whose mothers are at home making their teas, the little boy you walk past on the street, the little boy with a knife in his jeans, the security guard outside maccies who calls you a drunk slut, the housemate who defends you and says ‘oi, she’s not a slut’, the housemate who instead of going to his bed came to yours, the housemate who was too drunk to remember you saying no, the housemate who in the morning acted as if it didn’t happen, the students, the minors, the men twice your age, the fiancés, the husbands, the husbands whose football team lost on the telly, the kids who mimic their father’s rage because that black player missed the penalty, it’s his race’s fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault his tea is too fucking cold, the postmen who believe it was the cupboard you walked into, the nurses who believe that fall in the kitchen is what bruised your wrists like that, the nurses who tell you to ice your bruised wrists and they’ll be healed in a week, the doctors, the doctors who tell you you’re going to have a baby, the doctors who tell you your baby is healthy even though your black eye wasn’t there at the last scan, the doctors who don’t ever seem to realise your baby will be beat just like you, the crowds of men outside the clinic shouting, the crowds of men who call your abortion a murder, the men in the crowd you recognise as the ones who shouted after you a few weeks ago, the men who shouted  ‘sexy mama’ as you walked past them in the street, the Friday night drinkers, the drunks, the drugged-up dancers who grab and grind and grope, the drunk partners whose rage they hide in front of your children, the drunk partners who you stay with because of your children, the drunk partners who beg for your forgiveness when they’re sober, the boyfriends, the boyfriends who don’t like your friends, the boyfriends who think your dress is too low-cut, the boyfriends who you see every Saturday, the boyfriends who tantrum when it’s your brother’s birthday this Saturday, the boyfriends who sit silently at your family dinner, the boyfriends who say ‘sorry, I was just tired’, the boyfriends who won’t apologise because they did nothing wrong, the boyfriends who apologise profusely, crying, pleading, after they’ve smashed your face in with their fists, the carpet cleaners who don’t question the blood stains on the floor, the news anchors you watch on the tv reporting a woman in Saudi Arabia was stoned to death because she fled her marriage, the men who stone women for fleeing their marriages, the laws that allow women to be stoned for fleeing their marriages, the telly watchers who sit at home and think, ‘thank fuck it’s not like that here’, the men who have pictures of you on their phones, the one-night-stands who filmed you from behind, the one-night-stand you caught because his phone flash came on, the one-night-stands who promise they deleted the video, the one-night-stand who showed it to his mates but wouldn’t post it anywhere because don’t worry, he's not like that, the friends who stop speaking to you because they saw the video, the mechanics who say ‘you wouldn’t understand cars’, the mechanics who charge you less when your boyfriend’s there, the salesmen who scam thousands off your grandma, the waiters who address the man at the table first, the lawyers who say it’s your word against his, the call handlers who tell you to just lock your doors, to not walk home alone, to-

- 

The Holy Ghost

I have a friend from Ireland. We’ll call her Jane. This is my fictionalisation of her story. There is also a pastor, but this story is not his. It’s Jane’s. 

Crystal white snowflakes melted like sinking ships into the horizon. The late winter sun had woke from its slumber, peeking its firey head from behind the clouds. Hibernation was over. Blossoms had begun to flower, their blushed petals illuminating the cobbled paths, lining the frosted rooves of her village. The gentle grey mist hugged the treetops, it was a beautiful dawn, but all Jane felt was an uneasy ache festering in the pit of her stomach. She knew Spring to be a deathly season. New beginnings, new life. It gave people hope. She had none whilst she lived at home, not with those people she refused to call family.

Intoxicated by the bottle upon bottles of liquor she’d consumed since nightfall, Jane stumbled into the place she had faith would sober her. Pausing by the door, she rested her sweating forehead on the steel frame. The sharp pinch of its cold reassured her that the heat of her temper, the boiling of her blood, was temporary. She was soon to be eighteen. She would be out of her family home before she knew it.

 

Her head spun from the dizziness the drink had sickened her with. Her usual movements, calculated, cautious, became sloppy, as she fiddled with the charm hung around her neck. As soon as her fingertips felt the rattling pearl, she pulled the beads and recited the holy rosary. Hail Mary. Our Father. The son and the spirit. Her family’s sins proclaimed at the tip of her tongue, at the gate of the church. 

 

Her knees crumbled as a rumble of thunder struck the sky, a furious flurry of rain pelted her skin. That was her God. The one who understood her. Understood her enough to disguise her tears within the falling water. Her God knew she couldn’t cry at home. And so she knelt on the steps, under His gaze, whispering the confessions of her family. At the thought of it, she clutched her churning stomach and heaved until her gut was drained. 

 

Once she was done, once her belly was as empty as the desperate hollow in her chest, she slumped. The concrete steps were soothing as she rolled her torpid body to lie upon them. Just as her eyes were flickering to a sluggish close, the voice of a man lulled her awake. Had she disturbed someone? Had someone stepped in the vomit on the step?

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry”, she murmured. Pleading, sobbing, she wasn’t sure.

 

“Jane, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Oh Jane, what a mess you’ve made.”

She opened her eyes to look at him. Her pastor.

“Come, sleepy. Let’s get you cleaned up. What on earth have you drunk?”

She couldn’t even remember. But she’d consumed the poison like a wolf devouring its prey after a sparse hunting season. She’d ingested it as if it were the cure to a terminal sickness. Licking her lips in greed like an addict heating their euphoric spoon. She was desperate to forget, to escape.

 

The rest of that evening, Jane recalled only in patches. Broken pieces and blurry portions of traumatising flashback. But no matter the memory loss, she still knew.

 

She still knew what her pastor had done. 

 

He’d led her in, an arm under her shoulder, an arm around her waist. In the name of God, he would revive her, sober her, between the holy arches of the church. He lay her on his cot. Scratching, as if sewn by straw and stitched with hay, she lay paralysed, unmoving as he had undressed her, layer by layer, cloth by cloth, his lingering touches shocking her damp skin like a match against its striking surface. She had seen three of him that night, for her eyes were liars in their intoxicated state, and three had tripled the weight of the bondage she felt against her lifeless limbs, under his writhing body as he’d straddled her like a confessor kneeling before the altar. The sedative powers of the alcohol had anaesthetised her entirely, but she couldn’t escape the repulse as she remembered remnants of his motions. He had reached down, long fingernails prickling at the goosebumps on her skin, as he’d crawled his hands down into her knickers. Up and down he’d circled, as the friction burnt her tender insides from the dryness of his hands. And then he sat, his robe on, and lowered himself, and then back and forth. He moved back and forth until his own breath had become shallow. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth in an endless unchanging rhythm. Back and forth. Back and forth. He forced sloppy kisses against her neck. He pushed his knee between her legs when they tried to force shut. Stray tears uncontrollably fell from her eyes as she lay unresponsive, trying to maintain the little dignity she had left. She knew her strength was nothing compared to his, and her struggles would do nothing but cause her more pain. His hands roamed and grasped and clawed whatever they could touch. He pushed her cardigan sleeve from her shoulder, licking and nipping at the exposed skin.

 

 He had wailed a sacrificial cry as he’d finished, rolling off her to pet the damp of his skin. Panting. Smiling. He fiddled with the crucifix she wore on a beaded chain around her neck, and had whispered,

“I am a vessel, for your confessions. By connecting our bodies I have taken from you your sins, and through your cleansing have restored His faith in you, as His servant.” He spoke, stroking a sweating lock of her hair from her forehead. A provoking shiver took over her body as she felt the violent urge to vomit resurface.

 

As she had stumbled from the church, collapsing into pillars and tumbling into walls, she struggled for the door. With the thirst of a sobering drunk, she had sunk her hands into the basin of holy water, soaking her face with the liquid lie. When healing the blind, the son of God said unto him, go, wash. And the blind man went his way, and washed, and came back seeing.

 

That night, Jane saw. She saw that there was no God. Not for her.

 

She recalled the scripture her pastor had preached to her not long ago.

 “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.”

 

In that moment, standing before the door of the church, the door only an hour before she had been writhing beneath praising God, she had never felt as bitterly ashamed as she did now. There was an intensity to it, the debasing disgust she felt humiliating her to her core. The weakness in her legs intensified as her body instantly crumbled to the floor. Protectively bringing her legs into her chest, she stared ahead, feeling as though her true self had shattered and slithered inside herself. She felt nothing but an empty pit where her stomach should be. She stared into her palms, her useless palms which did nothing to help her. They didn’t even try to push him away from her. She didn’t fight. She didn’t push. She felt completely useless in her skin. A ghost in her own body.

 

She looked beyond, to the pink trees lining the pathway out of the church. Dear God, she hated blossoms.

-

 

 Speaking Out's like Drowning

 A memoir, a message to the police, a cry for help

 I lie in my bed and stare up at the ceiling. The walls are made of glass. My room is filled with water. I'm in a tank, kind of, although the water's endless. I can see for miles and miles. Gallons and gallons of nothingness. Water. I tried to tell them.

The space is open, I'm free to swim as far as I can. I can see into the distance, yet the distance doesn't end. Alone in the vast ocean.

Alone in my bedroom.

Sarah Everard

The glass walls collapse, shattering, a whirlpool starts spinning. I watch it from my bed. I watch it reach from my bedroom floor to my ceiling. It spins and spins, pulling the furniture into its underwater tornado-

and then I’m pulled in.

There's silence. I’m silenced. My vision and voice, muted, blurred. The rupturing walls of water surrounding me knock me side to side. My lungs are filled. I cannot breathe. My vision is fading to blackness. My pulse is weakening. I can feel it, my heartbeat, slow. Slower. Slowing. I'm trapped. I breathe in. I can’t. Suffocated in between these spiralling water walls. I thought I could trust them.

Tia Rigg

Then I’m back. Back in my bed. My eyes are open, my breath is fast, my heart is pulsing, my throat is throbbing. The water is gone. I'm back in my bed, I tell myself. Dry. Alone.

I stare up at the ceiling. I might be back in my bed but I’m always in that tank. The walls are always made of glass. Often flooded, but now filled with no water. It’s empty. There's just me, lying in my bed, at the bottom of the tank. I'm trapped, within the glass walls. Gallons and gallons of emptiness.

Then I see you.

And then the waters back. I turn to you, bubbles seeping from your mouth. Motionless. Floating. Your eyes are closed, your skin is pale. Your hands float by my head. I bat them away, I try to, but the water’s weight makes my limbs limp. Still, they flail wildly. Sometimes you think that’ll help. Sometimes you think that’ll stop it. My tears melt away into the ocean, becoming one with the void of water, meaningless. I shake your body, how you shook mine. But you stay still. Lifeless, like I was. I told them this. They didn’t listen to me. But this is what I see every time I close my eyes.

Ava White

And then I’m pulled out. Above the water. Air. A breath. I ask, why me? Why couldn't the water take me too?

I lie in my bed and stare up at the ceiling. I sometimes imagine the walls are made of glass. I sometimes imagine I hadn’t survived it, that I hadn’t even lived through it, that I hadn’t spoken out. Because I said it happened, but not like that, they said. My room is filled with water. I'm in a tank, kind of, although the water's endless. I can see for miles and miles. Gallons and gallons of nothingness. Water. Drowning under it all.

The truth is claustrophobic, when nobody believes it. I'm in my bed, but I'll always be underwater. I’ll always be the girl who drowned, because it was your word against mine.

Olivia Pratt-Korbel

 

Please stop failing us.