Today is International Day to End Violence Against Women. I am sharing my poem that was published in Chaneg ten years ago.
While Silence is Her Refuge
He crushed her being
spat on her education
raked her self-confidence
burned her plans
charted in the kitchen
where her work was never done.
Violence upon violence
visited her scar-ridden body
The pain - so severe
she could not even scream.
Silence was her refuge.
Her wounds ran much deeper
than sisters could imagine
But she swam alone in the
sea of her nightmares and anguish
Fears covered, cries stifled
Silence was her refuge.
The crowd had a million ears
but not one for the moans
of a sister’s tortured soul
It taunted her for her questions
crucified her for her speech
Word of pain was infamy
The crowd rubbed salt on the
raw, bleeding wound
Since then, silence became her refuge
A daughter now does the work
that is never done
Her spirit protests not
numbed by her mother’s death
and her own, for like her mother
she died a hundred deaths
and will die a hundred more
because silence is her refuge.
The crowd does not know
that silence betrays
The crowd itself has run
a million times
to silence for refuge
It still does.
When will the crowd realize
that silence is a foe?
It harbors violence
and squeezes the blood
that waters and keeps alive
the tree of death
that has eternal life
while silence is woman’s refuge./ Cheryl L. Daytec, 13 March 2000
