Disclosure Statement

AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE - PHENOMENAL WOMEN OF THE WEB

New love, or young love looks seemingly perfect to the untrained eye. It will last a lifetime. You will never grow tired of each other's company. The honeymoon will never end.

Then, everything in the harsh light of day suddenly changes. You don't know why. You don't know what you've done or said. You only know that suddenly you are looking into the eyes of a total stranger. A total stranger with the glitter of danger in his eyes.

The first time it happens, you tell yourself, "it won't happen again! I won't let it. I won't anger him ever again," as you silently ask yourself what you ever did to deserve such anger in the first place.

The next time it happens everyone knows. Everyone looks away when they see you coming. Your family looks silently grim. People whom you thought were your friends suddenly will not socialize with you.

The next time it happens you are terrified that he might kill you. You are hopelessly lost and afraid. You can't go back home. Your family warned you he had a mean streak in him. Besides, you may be pregnant. What if you are? What if the "next" time, you lose the baby?

"What will I do," you ask yourself, as you curl your body into a protective shell and look up at the empty soul and cold heart of a man you never knew existed.

There is a way out. There is help for you. There is one difficulty. YOU must make the decision to walk out when it is safe. YOU must take safe harbour and never look back and never turn back. For your very life -- and for your life ahead -- before your spirit is hopelessly crushed -- you owe it to yourself to leave a situation which will never improve, and which will never change, unless the change wrought is that your life is lost in the balance.

May the verses which follow give you insight. May they give you strength. May they fuel your courage!!

Remember this: YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM, UNLESS YOU CHOOSE TO BE!!!!

"Do you know why you are strong? Because you have been crushed, and yet you get up each day and keep going." (From the movie: Angus).

A CLAIM

Even through the days as a believer
doubt would shadow the distant light
over the valley deep in itself
the voices that rang clear of it
never lingered
and long before I left
I had already gone

each time I turned away
it all stepped into that water
where it would seem to be the same
almost the same
and the heart would sink at the sight of it
without knowing why
the same heart come again
once more expecting nothing
and caught by what was never there
Copyright: W. S. Merwin
The River Sound.
All Rights Reserved.

A FORWARD SPRING

Today the cold came back —
a sudden estrangement.
That first pale decision
to reach as far as lushness can
had just broken through:
all the celebratory leaves
explored by squirrels,
the return of canopies
instead of high naked trees,
deer in new horns
stepping over the folded
carnage of winter storms,
worms winding
like thought through those layers
where only a future had roots
during periods of doubt,
the mysterious wet dirt,
and the sun's intelligence
that separates clouds
with rays of sheer will.
I saw it so clearly,
how the spring admitted winter
but didn't retract.
What they call the sublime
doesn't look away
but looks at, boldly examines
the obscure impediments
to what it wants; sees
itself, sees what lies ahead
of itself, and goes forth...
Copyright: Lisa Williams:
The Hammered Dulcimer.
All Rights Reserved.

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