Whipping Girls

Could not good girl

my way to safety

Could not fawn

my way out of the

lion’s den

Inside every woman

is the need to exist

beyond the proximity

of men

Behind every mediocre man

is his own personal

whipping girl

Could not talk therapy

my way through it

Had to wade

waist deep through

the darkness my abusers

left behind

There is work to be done

mining the murky depths

of my subconscious

I am nothing

if not a

warrior

war shipped

woman

From the magdalen

bloodlines we rise

Serpent hipped

open lipped

to manifest

This poem is a

battle cry

The song of

women

rising

Elizabeth Gade is a writer and certified peer support worker in Southwest, USA. Her lived experience of abuse and incarceration is what drives her passion to write and serve her community. She has been a writer since a child and competed in slam poetry on a local level. She views writing & art as a radical way to show up in the world and to connect to fellow survivors.