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.
The weirdness finally wears off when there’s only five minutes remaining. It takes the dregs of my limited self-control to stop myself from jumping off
- Short Story
(Ma ma) sleeps with a knife under her pillow (her dreams are (safer than mines) I grabbed a butter knife, put it inside my
- Poetry
I can see you teaching him to walk. How his little feet stuttered How his fingers-unbelievably tiny- reached eagerly for yours, with your nails that
- Poetry
It was the summer of 1999 in what was then called Chocolate City. It was a sweltering season curated by music that sprang forth from
- Short Story
I wake to a man crouching by my bed in the dark. His body hunches between the two twin mattresses, each bed pushed against opposite
- Memoir
When he assaulted me, — but that is the wrong word Assault is what they do in video games, when the men shoot a volley
- Poetry
The author wishes to note that this poem was inspired by Litany , by Mahogany L. Browne INFERNO Today I am a Mormon Woman in
- Poetry
“See me,” I whisper. “See me! See me!” I am startled by the screams that come from outside of my body, and I am surprised
- Memoir
V. To a Survivor It wasn’t your fault. You hold guilt like a snowball in bare hands, the cold permeates through flesh into bone-stiffens. You
- Poetry
She had no intention of going to town that day. The rundown colonial buildings, the beggars sprawled in the dusty main plaza, the streets with
- Short Story
“Melissa, where’s your scrunchie?” Mom looked in both pockets of my jacket and on the floor under my booster seat. “I forgot it,” I whispered
- Memoir
What magic transpires when in the grip of the puppet- meister … What sucked me in? What pulled me tight? What trapped my mind, believing
- Poetry
I don’t know why I’m here today, it wasn’t in my plan, but here we are, just you and I, and I don’t understand. We
- Poetry
All profound love ends. Or so I’ve been told. As a child, I thought the most important thing in life was being happy, that one
- Memoir
When I was 10, we lived in a neighborhood that was always under construction My parents installed an alarm just in case anything were to
- Poetry
Stats say, one in every three girls will have experienced rape or sexual abuse in their lives I am one of three daughters. For most
- Poetry
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