This poem and artwork were both first published in Lot’s Wife Edition 3, 2021.
Content warning: sexual assault, violence, mental health, grief.
This piece was inspired by the Four Corners coverage of the sexual assault allegations against former Attorney-General, Christian Porter. Kate, the anonymous woman allegedly raped by Porter, was a young woman of sharp intellect and a bright future ahead of her. This seemingly pivotal moment in her adolescence shaped the many years following and defused the light of her highly anticipated future.
I know the way they look at me:
as though the hem of my life,
spun delicately across two decades,
has been caught on the edge
of a sharp shard in time.
The catch slows my march;
footsteps heavy, shoulders hunched.
With force, I attempt to gallop
but the snared edge splits –
tearing –
long and wide.
A chasmic void in the fabric of my well-spun adolescence;
darkness amidst the variegated embellishments.
I once gleamed with success:
young, bright-eyed, ambitious, they said.
But in a single sacrilegious moment
I was torn.
For your sparkling triumph
of collecting another little death,
my flames were extinguished.
Through the gash
the melancholia clambers in,
wrapping around the limbs and
pulling me under into the murk of depression.
Photo by @0ojin_.
