GHAZAL ON HOW I AM (NOT) A SURVIVOR

By Karo Ska

i don’t want sexual abuse to define me, so i am not a survivor. but i can’t deny who i am and what is a survivor,

if not someone who dares to heal, who dares to do the painful work of stitching themselves whole to survive,

threading the needle’s eye through a tiny opening, needing patience and steady hands. yes, i am a survivor

of what tore me apart, of what tried to unspool me, of what didn’t succeed. no, i am not a survivor

because i am more than my hemmed holes, i am more than what my step-father did. other survivors,

they get me, like they know the pain of my body not being my body. i claim survivor

to not feel alone, to know where i belong. maybe the search for i am ends at we are survivors

meaning we are ready to kick down the door and smash the windows of silence that keep survivors

trapped — thinking it’s our fault, if only we hadn’t done x or wore y or said z, when really we need a culture of consent

where intimacy is not performed with the lights off, but under the full moon of our yes’s — orgasms howling with our consent,

where our sexuality is fluid like a river, whether it’s flooding or trickling … we honor it all with our names — survivors

or not.