Blog Voices from Our Community
Read stories, updates, and reflections from artists, staff, and survivors. Here, we share the heart of Awakenings — one post at a time.
Empty cup that is how I think of the organ turned over like a mound of dirt, sleeping and awake, earthly exhale, between two ham
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a soft thing that purrs in your lap, a lion gently licking his mate’s genitals to awaken her, a panther pacing in a cage, the
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Elena’s Eyes When she was seven she was Queen of the Mountains. The village dogs bowed low as they lay wisps of feathers, and warm
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She lost her shoe a convenient shoe. A klutzy sandal not sandals which would catch the eye of a man unless he were the sort
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Empty cup that is how I think of the organ turned over like a mound of dirt, sleeping and awake, earthly exhale, between two ham
- Poetry
She imagined everyone could see them, the fingerprints they left behind. No special brushes or powder needed to reveal the damage that was done. She
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when I turn to the bottle I am only drinking when I cry in my sleep I am running when I wail in the night
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When I was seven, you blew a hole in my fucking soul. I was only seven. seven. A sick day. But not really. But really.
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Crystal’s tough and street smart. Show no fear and never cry. That’s her mantra and it serves her well. She’s sixteen and has called this
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One time, my sister asked why people do not swim when it rains— her point being they are already wet. As much as I tried,
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That summer in Brooklyn the streets were hot to the toes, asphalt like fire on our feet. Uncle Mike sent my Isabella to the corner
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My mother was making dinner She told me to go across the hall To get some sugar for the kool-aid I knocked on my neighbor’s
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I have always been quiet, humble like a little mouse I spent my time at the farm, scurrying around scared shy shameful for what I
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Her mother told the other mothers that my friend was a liar, so that whatever she said no one believed her. On sleepovers, her uncle
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That 50-year-old who “loved children” must be avoided, they said. He’d done it again and again but was never prosecuted, the elders said. But he
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and peaks its head around the hearth replacing a silver branch with a warm ember in the valley finally comes to rest the swirling water
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