My heart was pounding. I was 29, freshly married and in a city with a new job I loved. My ears were ringing. I didn't know if I was going to make it out alive.

i let you

bend me into doughy lifeforms

auditioning for roles i never wanted to play

“I got into my mother’s car with bruises all across my body, a broken elbow, and more trauma than imaginable…I am 18 and I will live with this for the rest of my life. I am a survivor, and I am grateful to be alive.”

“There were days her chest felt like a locked box with no key. Nights her body screamed like a siren while her mouth stayed politely closed. Breath by breath, she tried to exhale the ghosts, but they clung to her lungs like mold…It still hurts to breathe sometimes. But now she knows how to do it anyway. And that? That’s power.”

“In November of 2021, only 2 months after we met, you texted me: “I think you’re tough as fuck...” That was one thing you had right about me - I am tough, and unfragile and I am still standing.”

Meeting other people who have experienced human trafficking is never really awkward. It’s like there’s an understanding and knowing between us. We don’t have to know each other’s stories to respect each other.

He was my first boyfriend. Everything started out great, but then slowly, the guilt-tripping started…I still haven’t gotten justice.

How many words or small sentences can you lose from yourself to be deeply damaged? One, one thousand, one hundred thousand? Are there inconsequential words? I do not have an answer. But the loss of my words is changing me.

When I was thirteen, my parents found out I am bisexual. From that moment on, everything changed.

Then one day, it got so much worse.

“You say you love me. 

Yes! You do love me. 

But I have been loved before. 

I have been left before.”

“At first, I thought he was perfect. It felt like a movie: I was the quiet, unnoticed girl, and he was the popular football player, strong enough to lift me effortlessly. To my fifteen-year-old self, he seemed like a Disney prince amidst the typical high school crowd…He even proposed using a ring my mother bought; overwhelmed, I responded vaguely, "Maybe."’

“Fleeing physical and emotional abuse, at sixteen I left, choosing the risk of living on the streets instead…The following young adult years found me working my way across the country and internationally, in a series of adventures and calamities that helped me begin to heal and find myself. ”

“I am a survivor of sexual assault and a suicide attempt. I am a survivor who has walked through the revolving doors of love that hurts—enduring two abusive relationships. 

I am a survivor of everything the world has decided to put me through. These experiences are part of my diary—and I have chosen not to tear the pages out. 

This is why.”