top of page
Finding Balance

 

Finding Balance

2015

 

 

 

 

My work is about the struggle and healing process that can be experienced through dealing with sexual assault. I’ve created photographs in physical layers for the viewer to search through and explore on a deeper level. I’m asking the viewer to understand each layer individually, and together, to help portray the feelings associated with this issue. By talking about my own personal experiences, I’m trying open the floor for conversation about the prevalence of sexual assault in today’s society. Using words that were said to me, it makes them my own, taking away the power they once had over me. Excerpts from my own written work are included on these layers. It’s necessary to include both sides of the story to introduce the viewer to the way words may leave a scar just as easily as a physical touch. Showing that the healing process is not just about moving forward, but sometimes having to take one step forward, and two steps back, to inevitably get to a point of feeling whole again. This work is showing my own journey out of the darkness and into the light.

 

All that I wanted was love.

To experience love, you need to

know love; know how to be treated.

I fell for him with my face in the dirt

and my hands behind my back. with no

spine or ankles there was no hope

of standing back up. I was never useful

with clothing on.

He cut off the wings that he informed me

I had, as he created me;

his damaged little angel.

I fell under the dirt

With gusts of wind burying me into the sand,

I found a freedom from my fear. I thought I

had finally found someone who found me

useful with clothing on, I fell for him on to a bed.

Face stuffed into a pillow with my hands behind my back

he found me more useful without clothing on.

Mute and muffled, he never let me decline.

As the sun rose and the image of him faded,

I found myself damaged and cold.

To find love, love yourself.

I moved forward and found happiness in myself.

I climbed my mental mountain,

with my head in the clouds

I was too blinded to see the hole

marked my own that I was aiming directly at.

Blindfolded I aimlessly ran unyielding at them,

a comfort I thought was fair.

I became only useful without clothing on.

She was an apple and I’d already taken a bite.

in a trance, i assumed the hole was at an end.

I celebrated early with the comfort of friends,

all i see is darkness. all i see is my eyelids.

All I knew, was I would only ever be useful

without clothing on.

Left behind my sweet tart,

more cold than ever, my death becomes me.

The hole is beginning to feel very safe.

A warm familiar hand touched my cheek.

I was lifted into the comfort of a man 6 years passed

to my roots, to my home i found a security.

to my roots, to my start, i found comfort in a man.

I fell into arms, onto lips, into hands that cupped my face

that held my own and brushed my hair away.

I fell into a peace. I fell into a bed, I fell under eyes that

finally found me useful

with clothing on.

 

bottom of page