This is One of Those Stories We Don’t Just Tell for Fun

March 28, 2015 / Meaghan Ford

(Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault)

You know how people sometimes play that “game” of trying to prove they have the most grief? As a survivor of sexual assault, this poet was wasn’t up for playing – but someone else carelessly threw her trauma into the ring.

Here’s her stirring telling of the moment her story was taken from her – check it out and feel the power of taking your strength and story back.

Click for the Transcript

It’s the kind of party where no one is close, but everyone is friends for tonight. A keg, a room of bodies, a loud place safe to be no one.

Here, they talk about their grief like it’s a scale. Something numbered, and knowable. A card game that you can play over a few beers, like man, I’m having a rough day. I think my parents are getting divorced. Two pair. Nah, nah, nah, that’s nothing. My grandmother. She’s dying. Three of a kind.

Y’all complaining? This girl over here. She got attacked on the street. She cut the guy. Full house, and was molested as a kid. The room is silent. I had been opting out of their game until this boy felt it necessary to share my history with a room of strangers.

He says it crude, like no one’s allowed to have a bad day when I’m around. The consummate black cloud mustn’t I always be struggling. You can’t know how this works unless you’ve lived it. Surviving can mean some days you will be smothered, and others this thing won’t even be a part of you. This story is a telling that you will do so many times, it will not always be a victory. The only power you still have in is who you tell.

Surviving can mean some days you will be struggled, and others this thing won’t even be a part of you. I say you know? I’ve had a lot of things taken from me, but this story has always been mine. Thank you for proving me wrong again. You foolish boy. You clumsy mouth. Aren’t you just another story that I will tell so many times that you will become infamous.

How does it feel to be remembered, because all these people will remember of me is that broken girl, and I’m so much more than that, so sorry that I haven’t been fashioning my sadness loudly enough for you. Sorry that I’ve been learning new words for survivor and they are on my own name. Yell louder and louder each time.

Meaghan, I am still here. Meaghan, my mother gave me this strength. Meaghan, she named me legacy, named me birth right. Named me brighter than all of this nightmare. Look at the story I have become.

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Meaghan Ford is a Boston-based writer and designer always looking for that next great project. She’s a regular reader at the Cantab Lounge and Poetry Slam and is helping to organize the 2011 National Poetry Slam.

Video courtesy of Button Poetry. For more amazing spoken word performances, check them out on YouTube and Facebook.