deltawomen magazine december 2012 issue end
TRANSCRIPT
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DELTAWOMEN MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2012 ISSUE
Editor’s Note
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2012 is the end of the beginning for DeltaWomen. We started off with a few members working on the ezine, and we turned into an online magazine with the most supportive fans.
We never dreamed of being this close to you guys. Every now and then we receive a couple of emails from our readers and to be honest, as volunteers in DeltaWomen, we want nothing more but the reflection of what we believe in.
This issue has the theme “End” as we are wrapping up and getting ready for 2013. DeltaWomen hopes that next year will be the beginning of an end for the whole world. The end of inequality, abuse and violence against women and children all around the world.
Have a blast,
Elaheh Zohrevandi
END
How could I start painting my day when the moon says goodbye and the night ends?
It is easy to feel my heart vibrating in pain
I discover the finish of my dreams they were soft and made me feel great,
Then, why do I now feel too weak?
Could this day have a new taste?
Purple sunrise, dancing feelings?
Fading sadness, confusion and madness
Wake up heart, breath, fly,
slowly touch the sunlight,
sail the world, be strong,
have the fears go away
by Alicia Brauer
Sparkles In the End
4
Trees´ leaves end their green,
Birds and whales end their trip
Finding love, choosing life
Could I paint a new color on my day?
Could I taste a new flavor on today?
I found my new day, my love, my pace
Your eyes, your skin, strength and faith
I love you like the first day
You are the temple where I pray
The ending of the night gives me a present, a new start
Sharing breakfast, sharing life
While your voice makes the morning shine
Thank you sun for another rise
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Dear Sisters,
How was your 2012? Was it good for you? I am so happy with this issue! 2012 was one of the best years of my life. It was a year of beginnings and ends. It's the end of a material, selfish and envious me and a beginning of an altruistic era. I care about the others, keeping my heart and mind open for new opportunities. Although single, unemployed and lonely, I feel stronger than I used to be. I can influence you positively with my words; it makes my
by Laíze “Läyeh” Cândida
Why I Am Like You: The Never-Ending Story
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loneliness lose importance. Because December is a very special month for the entire world, I "steal" some minutes of your precious day to tell my experience during these 12 months. The miracle started one year ago, in December 2011. During my preparation to make "country's hardest of the harder exam”, I was convinced that I would get that job in 2012, because of my persistence. I was closed in my house with a tower of books to read. I didn't have time to stop. Heart was just an organ in my chest. I told everyone 2012 would be the year I finally could prove to the others, especially my enemies, that I was more than they thought. Consequently, defeat and fall were forbidden words in my dictionary. After all, I have a history of bad experiences that I succeeded. I didn't think in a Plan B, because, in my view, Plan A was being well-executed. And then Christmas Eve came. I had a stress crisis, crying, throwing my things on the floor and trembling with despair. Suddenly I thought in a possible defeat. What would I do? I didn't know.
The clock was ticking. January and February ran very, very fast. My thoughts seemed unchanging: in a couple of months, I would forget those moments with some weeks of deserved vacations. I could open my heart again in foreign lands, because in my view, I was living in a country of ugly pretenders! I received the last call from one of my best friends in that moment, and I judged that was the best opportunity to explain to her why I stopped our
hangouts. I thought she got the message; she's a very smart person. Again, love and friendship were just unimportant details thrown to the background. A new relationship would be dangerous and impede the rising of my brilliant career. As a conclusion of my impeccable plan, I forgot everyone to date a tower of books! I was the undefeated, so nothing could stop me. March finally came. According to me at my French class, it would be "ma plus grande réussite" (my biggest success, in free translation). I was sure it was my last semester with those folks (I also learn Spanish). I would triumph over the other candidates and win the battle for my dream job! Nobody opposed my thought, even my family was absolutely sure of my victory. March 25, a sunny Sunday, arrived. In the first exam, I was more and more convinced of my great success: I could remember everything I learned. Although drowned in anxiety, I did all the test smiling and left that room proud of myself for my victory. I had a successful opportunity to keep running for my dream, and nobody would stop me.
April came and I focused my heavy studies to the second stage. I wasn't prepared for this, so I intensified my rhythm. I should write 650 words in 5 hours, but, in the first day, I couldn't reach 300! That despair which was whispering in my head started screaming louder and louder. To worsen my fragile situation, those arrogant candidates around me were repeating everything I already knew
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about my knowledge and my uncertain future. I had one more allergic crisis, but I kept the focus on studies. April 17, day of the first results came and I read that list looking for my name. I was asking to myself two, three, four and a thousand times: "Where is my name? Let me read again". My name wasn't there. Was I trying to fly with wax wings? I was defeated, sick and fallen. It was the worst dawn of my life. In capital letters, GAME OVER.
From April 18 dawn to middle May; I listened to everything I didn't plan to listen about me. I just became numb and immediately start thinking on my beliefs. Why did I let it happen with me? Why? I was perfectly prepared to triumph. What will be my Plan B? It was time to decide it. And the complaints tripled. I was brokenhearted, feeling as a criminal and a liar. I was feeling so empty that I only could sleep crying and praying for help. It was hard to follow my dreams with a history of two defeats. I watched people of my age telling their happy adventures with their travels and jobs/MSc courses and I, the intellectually gifted, saw myself completely and absolutely lost in my uncertain future dressed as nightmare. I was in the bottom, haven't known a place deeper than that before. Some days ago, my mother, desperate with me, reactivated a very old love I have. I found one more reason to dream again: Music. That buried teenage dream to be a singer was reborn, and the closed doors restarted to open in my mind. It was incredible; my voiced saved myself from depression. In all
my lifetime, I never saw myself in the mirror like that. I was feeling beautiful, perfect, funny and intelligent at the same time! I fell in love with the most rejected man of my life: Music. Yes, I was changing my attitudes and killing my devils, little by little. June, the month of love in my country, was so different from the others… I found love and a second chance to keep walking! After watching lots of seminars, I started volunteering and reawakened my studies, more energized than never. I readjusted my normal living and restarted practicing exercises on my own. I didn't want to commit the same mistake again. I was so contaminated with arrogance and overconfidence that I blinded myself with something that wasn't in my hands. July and August were a long flight of steps ascending. I heard a phrase from mom's mouth that is my current North. I was finding my equilibrium for the first time in years.As a consequence of this flight in slow motion, September 28, day of my 24th birthday, was very special. I celebrated it with all the power of love and music I got during those months. I can defeat my devils with my songs and my laughter. But this isn't the end of my story; actually it's just the beginning. Have you already heard about October 24, a.k.a. day to celebrate our “oneness"? It's beautiful, my sisters. Despite our obvious differences, we are one. It was the best thing this long year brought to me: "oneness". I can reach all my objectives in life, say anything I want to and keep ascending by holding you with my arms. On
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the other hand, I must recognize I have limits. I'm not invincible, I'm not undefeated and sometimes our perfect plans will fail. That's why our daily knowledge exchange is important. I learn things that I never had interest and I teach things that you never felt interested to learn. It is beautiful and brought me applauses and compliments from people I never knew before! I want more of it, dear sisters. I also want it for YOU. I can't stop saying to love you first. Recognize your "oneness" and your limits. If you want someone to help following your path, I'm here for you.
One year after the crisis, I'm anxious to host my first show both for more than a hundred people and for the world. I keep volunteering, I keep studying to my third attempt to be a diplomat and I do expect a better 2013. I am not sure of anything, but I stop talking my life to the others. I feel my wings calling me for one more flight of steps ascending! I can't affirm my situation is healed, but I'm feeling under control. If you identified with me (or not), you should reexamine your life to see what you can improve. Don't be afraid to fall and commit mistakes. Don't build your invisible castle on sand. Smile, be faithful and think about the next day. Forget, for a moment, of your distant future. If you do the right thing today, you will surely have a better tomorrow. The story will never end. Fly Higher, have an aerial 2013. Thanks for reading my essays, I love you all just for it. See you in January!
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My body loves the life. My body abhors the death. She had gone to all hospitals in Gaza, to all clinics, to all physicians, in all cities, and in all provinces, yet all doctors said her ailment was incurable. She will die at the end. I know that and she knows that the doctors, in Gaza, have not the medical expertise in the practical medicine, making the healthy man ill man, and the hospital, devoid of every of everything that would hospitalize the building, does not deserve its name " Hospital". Yes, they might kill the patients mistakenly: they lack the medical accuracy.
by Mohammed R. Monifi
" If you want to continue to believe that's this is a matter for debate, instead of an emergency, and a time for action, I want to tell you how many women will die"
Andrea Dworkin, the Only Feminist who shed tears for the women
My Holocaust: The End of My Story
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My reader, don't expect me to tell you about the medical history of Gaza. To help you, you ought to think of the worst. This anecdote is the worst of the worst.
One of the hospitals' administrators has arranged a patient transfer to send her to the good hospital in Israel. Naturally, If our patients reach the critical condition, they will be transferred to the Israeli hospitals. Sometimes Israel accepts some patients, and we get exultant when Israel accepts our patients because we believe in the great medical experience of the Israeli doctors who saved many lives of the Palestinians. The woman submitted her offer, hoping that she will be treated and healed, and her suffering will be ended, and her early coming death will wait longer and longer. After the three days, after the three days of optimistic and hopeful wait, her offer was repudiated for some reasons we did not know. But she thought that she had no one to help her on the political level, who would be a broker between the Israeli security and the Palestinian hospitals.
Her friend told her her child was cured in Israel , for her husband knew a very politically-powerful man in the Palestinian Authority who assisted her in facilitating the process of transfer. Of course, there is no political women in the Palestinian Authority who could help this dying patient. Her husband died two years ago in 2008 war, the Cast Lead: she found him dead, laid motionlessly on the steps. She has a four-year girl.
Our hospital did not neglect her offer, so it prepared a transfer to the Egyptian hospitals, which are not better than ours in a sense ;nevertheless, the free country is not like the besieged region.
The Rafah entrance was closed. According to the Egyptians, the entrance must be closed for the Egypt's security. Anyway, they have starting talking about the security since 2006, yet before 2006 security was not on the agenda. It seems Middle east is full of strange surprises, and It is a cemetery for somebody.
She must undergo the life-saving operation. Fortunately, there is a man- in her neighborhood- who was smuggling goods and people through the tunnel at night to make money. In Gaza, the tunnel are a very good money maker – but very, very risky: you might lose your life for the sake of hundreds of dollars. The people are between the tunnels, the Death Reaper, and the clutches of poverty. Working in tunnels is a career of the jobless people. If you do not go to the darkness of the tunnels, the poverty will welcome you without hesitation: you will have much hospitality. He's very terrifying; the darkness is the escape. There are many young people who died there, and buried under the rubble of the tunnel, their breaths revolving inside the lungs: no escape to escape but to be stored, and that are having no desire to mix with the cold breath to see the wide-opened eyes.
Notwithstanding these appalling stories, she was persisted in going through the tunnel of death to face the death and to be with
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her lonely child. I could not imagine the life which she led. The lethal disease is growing in her weak body, and the psychological war taken place in her mind might annihilate her. She was not allowed to go to Israel; she could not go to the Egypt: the entrance was closed; she had one child; she may and may not see the light at the end of the tunnel. But she must go – nothing ventured; nothing gained.
It was a dark night; the darkness of the night and the darkness of the clouds and the darkness of the hearts. As usual, the power was off – no electricity – the flames of candlelight waxing and waning according to the tide of the winds, the rains, when hitting the roofs, reaching their crescendo and their diminuendo. While the nature was playing its music, the woman lit the candle again to create a small day with a moribund sun for her sleeping child if she was awaken by a nightmare. It was a stormy and a dark night. She was in her way to the smuggler, who luckily live in her neighborhood. She knocked the door many times, and finally his wife opened the door, welcoming her coldly. In the living room, the woman was talking about her illness and transfer process with the wife who was so cold towards her.
" You have the money?" said the wife.
" Yes" the woman answered.
The man, a little bit tall, clean-shaved, red-eyed, very slim, entered the room, his hands bruised, his nails full of dirty stuff and sand, his jeans very tight, and his shirt very loose.
He sat. " I want $1000 to smuggle you to the other side. See. I ain't playing, but you must give me half of them, as an earnest money, to book it for you at a certain time. You know you're not the only one. They are many and many persons like you. This day I have smuggled 20 persons."
" I know. I have $500 now" said she, sighing deeply, opening her purse," Her you are. The $500. You will get the other half there, at the tunnels.
The man kissed the money and said " you must be there at 7:00 o'clock"
" OK. I will" she replied with much sick happiness.
Then she called her aunt in Egypt, telling her about the appointment; so she can wait her at the Egyptian side to escort her there. Next day, she sent her daughter to her mother to look after her while she's absent. We know the grandmother or the aunt is the second mother.
She prepared her clothes, her money, her required hospital papers. In her room, strongly her motherhood obliged her to call her daughter to hear her voice, to her " Mum". It's the
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womanhood that she never forgets. That can protect the childhood; that cannot leave the child crying.
The winds were so cold and so smooth, touching her faith, drying the tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. The sun tries to disappear behind the clouds, yearning for the secret night, for the 7:00.
She got there. The place was terrifying: no people, no trees but many tents covering the tunnels' entrances, and many sandy hills. The man came out of the tunnel, full of dust, pulling the two sheep.
Unexpectedly, she heard the desperate cries from everywhere. She was afraid to the death; it is the cry that could pierce her ears.
" The tunnel is collapsed" said the voice loudly.
" Three men inside the tunnel" said the other voice.
"Where's the spade. Dig them out" cried the remote voice.
Her face changed, her pulses leaping up quickly, and she forgot why she was here, in this death spot, that is full of tormented and tormenting cries.
This tiny inferno may change her mind, and get back to her daughter. Yes, she did make up her mind to return back to her home, but the man did not want to lose her money.
He said" Fool men. They couldn't make a good tunnel. The tunnel collapsed because they didn't dig down very well to make the appropriate well. The hole was 3 meters deep. I told them the tunnel would collapse. Ah, but they didn't hear me. This is the fault of those who don't take the advice"
" Look at that tunnel. It's inside that green tent over there. See. There two men coming out of my tunnel safely. No dangerous. No collapse. I did it very well. You don't have to fear. Believe me. Are you ready?"
" I think. But I must go no matter what." My child needs me
" Come on"
After she had given the other half of the money, She climbed down the ladder in the hole, and she, bending down, went straight along the path. There is a dim lamp after each meter. The tunnel, filled with the dust perfume, was very hot and unbearable.
The man went away, and phoned the Egyptian policeman to tell him that there was a woman in the way. ( he thinks to tell the policeman is to save the tunnel from being destroyed by the Egyptian police).
The Egyptian policeman threw a poison gas bomb inside the tunnel.
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by Hadi Barazandeh
Her Life, Her End
14
A dark road, with no end
The beginning of the darkness of a story
Touching the hands of a stranger in the street
A deadly silence, an end
A cold rough hand, an innocent body
An objection, acceptance of rejection and all the cold looks
The corner of the bed and a kid deep in blue
Wrapped around herself like an infant
A shock and getting empty from within
Accepting the fact that fills you with mania
The news of having HIV
Full of fear and the feeling of being lonely
The roughest side of this life
The rest of the road without slavery
Quitting school, a kid, a child
Now a working citizen with no right
Tears that can only be in those eyes
Should turn into big happy smiles
A kid's pain should not stop a life
Shouldn't turn her into a labour child
An end to a smile
Is and end to a life
An end to a life
Is an end to the world
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I remember a song that went like this: Never to see your lovely face again, never to feel your warm embrace again, da da da da ...then the violins would come in: oh no, this must be a dream...
Apologies to the lyricist for my not getting the words quite right. Nevertheless, songs enriched with this sentiment, sung in a tenderly way by Johnny Mathis, were appealing to me as a teenage girl with a poet’s newly discovered passioned heart.
Then Greg Selzner had a horrible accident with his sports car. He had just started to drive. He was a lively, funny friend, kind and smart, and everybody liked him. We had been friends and classmates since we were five.
He didn’t die. His girlfriend was in the car with him and she died. He survived, his brain severely damaged.
One Friday night his broken-down father, as a parent myself I can’t imagine, determined, probably desperate for his son to return to normal perhaps if he could just reconnect with his
friends again, brought him to see all of us at our local soda fountain. He wasn’t Greg anymore. I remember his head was enormous. Yet I think he might have recognized me and he smiled.
Devastated by what had happened to him, I turned away. I felt the heartbreaking disappointment of his dad as he took it as a snub. But I was barely seventeen, and this wasn’t the intense bittersweet sentiment vocalized beautifully in those romantic songs. This was cold and cruel and real.
I was in my thirties when my best friend and lover died suddenly on Christmas Day from a fall down a flight of stairs. This time I couldn’t look away and for a good part of the following year, I died too.
After the pain subsided, the shadow of his memory and the purpose of our time together, and our love, gave me a reason to move on. I was special then. I had a secret, a badge, a hidden scar.
by Denise Falcone
Never Again
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My marriage tragically ending in divorce, the fading away of friends, a few still missed, the death of a sibling and the passing of my parents...all are gone now from my life as I know it.
There is no more the distraction of a life waiting in the wings, a life not yet lived that can pull me away from assessing the damage with the words, I’ll think about it when I’m grown-up, I’ll think about it tomorrow. And the strength to carry on with the weight of exits to come is waning.
Perhaps this is why it takes courage to grow old. Maybe this is what it means to feel haunted. The hands are reaching out but I can no longer touch them.
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In Korean, the word “yepuda” means “pretty.”
When you are in Korea, you will hear this word quite often amongst general chatter, particularly if you are Caucasian and female.
During my two-year stint living and working in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, I heard the word “yepuda” a lot - from my Korean co-workers, friends, people in shops and strangers on the street. As a young Canadian woman navigating a foreign country, I became fascinated observing the nation’s preoccupation with achieving beauty - with their obsession towards Western looks and
by Amelia Clements
Plastic Surgery in Korea: Attaining a Westernized Beauty Ideal
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of what they have deemed beautiful: not the delicate features nature has ascribed to Korean women, but the pale-skinned image of a Caucasian woman.
To achieve this look, many Korean women choose to go under the knife. In Korea, plastic surgery is big business. According The Economist Online, one in five Korean women has had plastic surgery. The sprawling metropolis of Seoul is unofficially known as the plastic surgery capital of the world. Girls receive plastic surgery as birthday gifts, fulfilling their wishes for thinner noses and wider eyes. Many of my female co-workers had had some form of plastic surgery done, including what seemed to me to be the most popular: double eyelid surgery. This is where the fragile, paper-thin skin of the upper eyelid is cut and sewn so as to produce a double-fold that creates the appearance of a more Caucasian eyelid.
It’s not just surgery, but cosmetics as well: walking down the street of a busy shopping district, you will see more cosmetic retailers than you can shake a stick at - The Face Shop, Skin Food, Etude House, Missha, Innisfree…the list goes on. All selling products like “whitening” creams and eyelid tape (again, for achieving that coveted double eyelid look) and attached with them the guarantee of shiny, perfect features – pale skin, wide baby doll eyes, rosy cheeks and lips. The emphasis to be beautiful is extreme.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Korea, and all this certainly may not sound much different to the rest of the world’s obsession with beauty and perfection. The alarming thing is that the idea of perfection being sold is one that is unnatural and virtually unattainable without cosmetic alteration. Women the world over batter their bodies to try and mold them into some sort of “perfect” shape. The lesson being taught to girls, in Korea and beyond, seems to be that in order to achieve success, acceptance, and true happiness, one must conform and suffer to be beautiful.
In the school where I worked, young girls would come up to me and tell me how “yepuda” I was. “You are pretty, too!” I would tell them. “No, you are more beautiful, I can’t be as beautiful as you because I’m Korean,” they would say. A disheartening response to say the least.
All this observation and contemplation has me thinking: where does a focus on appearance cease to be about exploring an individual’s natural potential and right to express themselves? When does it become a more serious social comment on the status of the women who are expected to inhabit these roles? Even though great progress has been made in Korea regarding the status of women, it’s hard not to come away feeling like women are stuck in a rat race to constantly consume and emulate these beauty ideals.
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There certainly won’t be an end to it anytime, I’m sure. But until then, all we can do is work hard to remember and remind ourselves and the women around us that “yepuda” comes in many forms.
Online Resources:The Economist Online
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Sometimes I lie on the floor in my room and I gaze at the roof and close my eyes, think for hours and hours.
I have a dream. I made a city in my mind. I named it Utopia. I made it in a beautiful island in the middle of a blue sea. I know all of people in Utopia because I made it and I only invited the people who I like. It is lovely to look at people who you like to see.
In Utopia the king is a child. The children are very honest and kind. They know the value of life.
There, you must show your feeling s. You don't have to be self-contained when you are sad or angry. You can cry anytime and anywhere you like without worrying about
by Roja Grayeli
The City I Named Utopia
21
your dignity. That's why the people of Utopia are very happy. They don't keep bad feelings in their hearts.
Although they don't have to work, everyone has a job. In there, it's not important what job you have. You can be a dustman. It's very funny and easy because there isn't any dust or garbage.
In real life my grandfather passed away. He was very sick but in Utopia he is still alive without any illnesses and pain. I love him so much that I made a home for him in there. I see him with a smile on his lips every time that I am in there. In Utopia there isn't death or any illnesses.
There are some Zombies. They are very funny and useful. Everybody likes them. They are seen in winters and they eat snowmen. People make snowmen for them. Winter will finish in Utopia when the Zombies eat all of the snow.
There are wonderful birds. They are like Mp3 players. They sing any song that you like.
Entering to Utopia needs no visa and no passport. The ticket is very cheap. Just close your eyes and believe in your dreams.
Welcome
You are in your Utopia.
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Hope means believing that something is possible, even when there is an indication to the contrary. However, when this feeling is allied to the determination and perseverance can lead us to victory, even when all seems lost.
The opposite of hope is desperation, which leads the individual precisely the opposite: no desire to move forward, no dreams, plans or projects, causing the person to lack of pleasure and joy in life.
It is through hope that we believe in a better world, seeking help and love others as ourselves.
Hope makes us believe that we can always change and improve our character and attitudes, putting the collective above the individual. The lack of hope takes us the pleasure of living, turns the color of life in a black and white world. The alternatives for a variety of life situations, give way to a blind alley.
In our daily life, we are confronted by countless tragedies and frustrations that can unsettle our dreams and projects, if we are not firm in our beliefs and values.
by Daniela Silva
End: Hope For A New Beginning
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Hope comes in our life as a fuel, we must supply daily as well we eat bread.
Live to live, without waiting for the better can happen, it means chasing after the wind. Live without hope is not living, is to wait for death to come.
Live to live, without waiting for the better can happen, it means chasing after the wind. Live without hope is not living, is to wait for death to come. Instead of being without hope, true hope drives you to seek what is best in itself to the service of life, believing that everything can improve, always. Even the way we see and live life.
Next, we see a tale that translates words into actions. An attitude of perseverance, where there is hope of a new beginning, not an end.
The Hare and the Tortoise
An Aesop's Fable
The Hare was once boasting of his speed before the other animals. "I have never yet been beaten," said he, "when I put forth my full speed. I challenge any one here to race with me."
The Tortoise said quietly, "I accept your challenge."
"That is a good joke," said the Hare; "I could dance round you all the way."
"Keep your boasting till you've beaten," answered the Tortoise. "Shall we race?"
So a course was fixed and a start was made. The Hare darted almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show his contempt for the Tortoise, lay down to have a nap. The Tortoise plodded on and plodded on, and when the Hare awoke from his nap, he saw the Tortoise just near the winning-post and could not run up in time to save the race. Then said the Tortoise:
Moral of Aesop’s Fable: hope when combined with perseverance, brings good change.
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!
by Leila A. Fortier
Solidarity
25
Leila A. Fortier is a poet, artist, and photographer
currently residing on the remote island of Okinawa
Japan. Her unique visual poetry is the specially
crafted formation of abstract designs, often
accompanied by her own multi-medium forms of
art, photography, and spoken performance. Much
of her work has been translated into French,
Italian, Spanish, Arabic, German, Hindi and
Japanese in a rapidly growing project to raise global
unity and understanding through the cultural
diversity of poetry and literature.
Her work in all its mediums has been published in
a vast array of literary magazines, journals, and
reviews both in print and online. In 2007’ she
initiated the anthology A World of Love: Voices
for Carmen as a benefit against domestic violence
and in 2010’ composed a photo book entitled
Pappankalan, India: Through the Eyes of Children
to benefit the education of impoverished Indian
children. She is also the author of Metanoia's
Revelation through iUniverse.
A complete listing of her published works can be
found at: www.leilafortier.com
For
So long she
Had adhered into perfect
Place~ An invisible shield of feminine
Armor~ What lay beneath had always been
Perceptible to me neath the layers of articulation-
Careful consideration~ Bound tightly in oceanesque
Hues of blue~ She had always kept a silent tremor
Off-limits to entry~ Pleading me to physically
Force it from her~ To exorcise the
Extraction of her pain
For the sake of
One more
Day
Of
Composure~ Broken moments of release in disguise~ A constructive camouflage
For her liberation~ She had become immobilized by her restraints~
Meticulously mummified~ The repressed tension of
Every emotional injury~ Breaking was a
Necessity back then…But it was
Never really about 26
The exercise~
Both of
Us
Wrestling such
Similar demons~ We were the
Perfect balance of force and reason~ Fire
And ice~ A strong tonic cocktail of sweat and
Profanity~ Endorphin provoked junkies fisting
Our self-imposed archetypes~ It was never about
The control…It was about the euphoric moments
Of losing it~ The crash and crawl into blissful
Depletion~ Clawing through psychological
Fevers~ Delineating wounds left
Denied and unspoken~
Equipment
And
Space
Were only a
Backdrop for our training~
Our solidarity was a therapy of a different kind
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End
CEO
Elsie Reed
Editor
Elaheh Zohrevandi
Proofing
Kirthi Gita Jayakumar
Photographer
Effat Allahyari
Contributors
Alicia Brauer
Laíze “Läyeh” Cândida
Mohammed R. Monifi
Hadi Barazandeh
Denise Falcone
Amelia Clements
Roja Grayeli
Daniela Silva
Leila A. Fortier
Staff
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Copyright
xxxi
© 2012 DeltaWomen NGO
All rights reserved.