I still cry at least once a day. Every now and then I’ll skip one, but that’s a rare gem. Sometimes it’s in the shower, or in bed at 3 am when sleeping is an impossibility. When I smell my child’s hair, I realize that I may never be able to protect her, so there are times in class when I’ll bite my tongue till it’s raw, trying not to let my eyes puff up. This is what my version of survival looks like, hurting in private so I can get up in the morning and make pancakes for my daughter. I used to cry everytime my partner touched my stomach, everytime he breathed on my ear. That hasn’t happened in 2 years. When I was first torn apart, I couldn’t tell anybody about my ribs or my inability to rinse the taste of sweat and french fries out of my gums. But not anymore. Now I write it in poetry and submit it so my life can be read by strangers on computer screens. I fight for the voice that was sucked away out of car windows while speeding down the road. This is also survival- breathing, bleeding, writing, and relearning how to be loved. This journal is so that we can all survive freely and unjudged, together.

It started with a passion for writing at three, flourished into a English degree that abruptly ended due to a virus, and developed into a lot of days wasted in bed, staring at the ceiling while blasting Fleetwood Mac records. After receiving a plethora of job rejections, I found a light at the end of the tunnel, working for an organization that celebrates and empowers survivors on their path to healing. A seat on Survivors to Superheroes’ literary journal was open and (with encouragement from some close friends) I decided to send in my resume, excited by the opportunity to offer a creative space for survivors to express themselves. After writing a 60 page creative writing thesis during college that charted my own personal growth and healing, I was ready to encourage people to do the same, and that passion still lives on today.

Memory is always suspect, my professors taught me in the psychology labs of my early adulthood. Our brains are awash in chemicals that bleach out the images, leaving us with psychic prints that resemble, but don’t exactly reflect reality. Are my childhood memories– developed in the tones of 1970’s Polaroids, as sunny as they seem? Perhaps…or then again, perhaps not. But I can’t remember when the existence of sexual violence first arose in my awareness. Gradually it must have entered my consciousness–the making of a young feminist. My children, though… they are another story. Brutality and violation mixed in with the pink hair dye, doritos and social media of adolescence. Will their memories wash clean one day, or have the stains bonded forever with the fabric of their souls? That’s why I helped to found Survivors–to enable us all to heal from the trauma that began with a first assault and then spread through our family, ensnaring all of us over time. Over the years, I have grown into a cantor, a teacher, an education director, and a mother. I am a singer, a writer, and a bad artist. I bring all those parts of myself to my work on behalf of survivors–and to my work as an editor of Songs of Survival. I believe that telling our stories and writing our traumas helps us to heal, to reshape ourselves and to rebuild our memories. I hope to provide a format that allows others to heal and to travel through life on their own terms.

My name is Katy, and I am a political science student, a history aficionado, a world traveler, and a survivor. In the lead up to the sentencing of the person who assaulted me, I was tasked with writing a victim impact statement. While it seemed daunting at first, I found that once I sat down and began to write, the words instantly poured out onto the page, and when they did, I gained a feeling of peace that changed my life for the better. Since the very day that I read my statement in that courtroom – my seventeenth birthday – it has been my mission to help others find their voices too. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the healing that writing provided me, and it’s for this reason that I joined Songs of Survival as an editor. No matter how sexual violence has impacted you, I hope that we can help you share your work in a way that brings you peace and healing too.

My name is Laura, and I am an artist, writer, comedian, actor, and educator. At Survivors to Superheroes, I write articles as a content creator. I’m a big believer in storytelling. I think that people’s stories need to be told, and even more than that, they need to be listened to. As a reader for the literary journal, I have had the honor and privilege of hearing the stories of so many incredible survivors. I hope that as you read Songs of Survival, you open your heart to listen to the stories of others—and perhaps, feel empowered to one day tell your own.

I don’t remember growing up. My childhood was pink and green and gold, spent on bikes and in the snow and under blankets after beautiful days. It was singing, laughing, whispering to my sister through the darkness of our bedroom. It was school, my best friend’s blond hair and bubbling laugh, a perfect score on a spelling test. It was a hug from my mother, the assurance of comfort, and the security of unconditional love. It was reading every chance I got—under the covers, under my desk, both late at night and early in the morning. I remember waking up at five A.M. and sitting in the silent living room, just me and the birds, the words on the page and the world within them. At some point, my childhood ended. I don’t remember exactly when; as many do, I missed the moment when my responsibilities became my own, the day the comforting shelter of my mother’s arms wasn’t enough to ward off all evil. But I looked back one fateful afternoon at a world much darker, much crueler, much scarier than the one I grew up in. And I turned to literature again. What had once been childhood escapism became my window to understanding. Words wrestled extraordinary problems into comprehension. Maybe they couldn’t solve all problems, but they could articulate them in such a way that I could begin to look for a solution. I want to help survivors do the same. Together, we can pull beauty from pain and understanding from chaos.

A beautiful quiet neighborhood street. The sounds of birds chirping. Being tucked into bed at night. Lying in the grass looking up at the sky. The gentle babble of the creek at the bottom of the yard. The warm embrace of my family. The sound of someone playing music. It wasn’t a white-picket fence, but, well, you know what I mean. And then, slowly, my once-clear vision began to blur; the edges became marred with something akin to black ink gradually inching towards the words at the centre of the page. A whisper here, someone’s sadness there. It was so subtle at first that you almost didn’t realize it. Almost. And then, like a slow-moving train, my peripheral vision gradually came into focus. All of those whispers were in front of me now, no longer whispers but screams. I started remembering the quiet stories I had heard years back of the dark and quiet park late at night, of the (not-so-safe) safety of my friend’s driveway. I started to realize the power of these stories, that my story and the stories of others bled into one another; the black ink now fully entangled with the words at the centre of the page. But these stories should never be whispers. They should never be hidden in the background or obscured. This is what I hope to do as the Production Chair of Songs of Survival, provide this blank and open space for everyone to share their voice, their experience, a space to heal through creation.

In high school, I envied my classmates who had typical teenage drama, day in and day out; did you hear who got caught drinking last weekend, I heard he has a crush on me, she kissed him behind the bleachers? I desperately wanted that to be my drama, but I never got to be a regular 16 year old. I spent my days in class with my rapist, visiting him on my lunch break and getting Starbucks with him after school. Our movie nights were atypical. Couches and basements and Valentine’s day and Starbucks and friendships have been tainted forever. I could tell nobody, not my friends or teachers or family because I was afraid of backlash and I was afraid of judgement. I suffered in silence for years, waking up in a cold sweat every couple of nights from the nightmares, silently crying when my new partner would touch me, running away from men with curly brown hair in public. He was long gone but somehow he still owned me. It wasn’t until 5 years later that I finally told my mom, hysterically crying at 4 AM. She told me he couldn’t hurt me anymore. I almost believed her. It felt like a weight had finally been lifted off of my chest. 7 years after the fact, in the midst of founding Survivors, I shared a poem with my friends, telling them for the first time what he had done. It was as if his grip on my psyche lessened and lessened with each person that I told, spreading my trauma thinner and thinner until there was an army of loved ones lifting me up. I was starting to feel like I owned my body and my mind again. I always knew that I wanted to give survivors back their voices through our literary journal, but I never expected to find my own along the way. Telling my story is my survival. Maybe it can be yours, too.

I remember the days of being 15, much more naive and ignorant than I am today. My life consisted of video games and soccer practice, and my biggest worries were homework and my part time cashier job. Whenever I wasn’t busy I would spend as much time as possible at my second home, hanging out with the Tortorello-Allen clan. We were normal kids living normal lives. It was a day just like any other, I came over to the TA’s looking forward to another fun night of teen shenanigans, but left with a pit in my stomach. My best friend Julia had shared her story with me about her recent experience with sexual assault. I immediately was overwhelmed with anger, but what became even more prevalent was how confused and lost I was about the whole situation. We had many questions and thoughts about the situation and nowhere to find the answers or to share our thoughts. It became clear that something had to be done. A platform needed to be created where survivors and their loved ones could not only receive vital information and answers to questions, but could also share their stories. I am so grateful for the creation of this literary journal so that survivors, along with their loved ones, will not have to feel alone like I did. It is imperative for survivors to realize that they are not alone, and that their stories are valid and believed. I’m incredibly grateful that I am part of the team responsible for creating such a helpful platform.