There’s a nagging part of me that doesn’tįully believe in my work. Irresponsible) and genderfluid to be a matriarch, but my body still feels like Tentacles splitting up families, and even longer centuries of suppressed This silencing goes all the way back toĭecades of political strife, erupting across history as piercing sharp

Myself in reflected surfaces, for fear of seeing a body that has no voice, aīody that can’t contain everything that it knows.Īllowed to speak, and that there are limits to what I’m allowed to talk aboutĪnd how, underpins much of my trauma. It was that I felt like my voice wasn’t needed, didn’t count, and shouldn’tĮxist. It wasn’t just that writing can be financially precarious. The co-opted Hollywood #MeToo movement - no more? But here I am, a pendulum forĪ body, yoyo-string for hands, swinging back to the things that scare me theįor many years, I wasn’t sure I was going Wasn’t going to talk about this anymore? Didn’t I say - after the hell that was I’m thinking about the topics I can’t help butĬome back to, despite how painful they are to revisit. Turning away, one by one, until the truth Pressure on the speaker’s moments of reprieve and anguish, the back and forth of Remarkable about Horlick’s work is the care with which her couplets put In fact, it’s not just that it’s poetry- For Your Own Good is the kind of poetryīook that languages (and languishes in) every part of the page. Give voice to a range of survivor experiences.Ībout such a visceral, real, and rarely talked about topic makes me feel seen Women Against Violence Against Women, a rape crisis centre (that now supportsĪll marginalized genders), reading non-fiction about sexual violence helped to I have a signed copy of Iris Chang’s Rape of Nanking that I got from a friend’s grandfather. Own Good-a book of poetry dedicated to sexual violence and abuse within a Oddly, the one thing that makes sense and keeps He has his ownĭemons (squirrels, birds, hairballs) to fight. This uneven bodily distribution of labour makesĮverything around me feel suffocating. Mother has never learned to rock them to sleep. These small, slightly hypermobile joints are constantly withstanding the fullįorce of strength required of a writer and dumpling-maker their neglectful Post-traumatic stress disorder with what my physiotherapist calls baby-wrists. Time to rest and be alone with myself in a city with limited, frequently Outside, glass condos glow pleasantly over the din of breweryīeards, afternoon baby strollers, and barking dogs. I’m lounging in a big apartment in yet another gentrified Vancouver I’m cat-sitting this beautiful fluffy grey boy and

For Your Own Good by Leah Horlick