Menstrual Poetry

Mother’s Day and the Release of No Trespassing

Today is Mother’s Day and no matter how hard I try to forget about this day, it still manages to come, mock me and leave for another year.

This day is by far a great day for most people–Mothers for one. It is also a great day for people to show their mothers how much they love and appreciate everything that they have done them. However, sometimes you get that special case where one day out of the year just doesn’t mean the same to someone as it does to others; and Mother’s Day is that day for me.

I have not seen my mother in almost a decade. No, she isn’t dead, but she may as well be. My mother was not like most out there. My mother was a child abuser. She was a child sex trafficker and a child molester. She was (and still is) a drug addict and an alcoholic. I stayed silent about so much that happened during my childhood for so many years and it was last year where I pretty much just deteriorated. My layers of walls that I had spent years of my life perfecting melted away and I started to talk about what I had gone through and that was the best time of my life. I had stayed silent for so long because I was afraid of what people would say, how they would see me and most of all, I was afraid of what the rest of my family would think about me. While I was still in my mother’s custody I had told her that I would tell on her some day and she said that no one would believe me and I believed her.

I still don’t know what the rest of my family thinks. I was never really given the opportunity to speak to them about all of this; whenever the subject of my mother has come up my grandmother would be the first one to say that she didn’t want to hear about anything because it made her upset to even think about what happened. My father, while I love him immensely, has never been one to show or voice his emotions and so the verdict is still out on that one. My aunt had talked to me very briefly about it, after reading an interview I had done with my local newspaper about being a survivor of child sexual abuse. Not being given the opportunity to actually speak to my family about my childhood, I decided to publish it in a newspaper and send it to the doorsteps of 70,000 people living in my area.

While I have undoubtedly progressed in this whole healing process (not to mention being raped when I was 18 at the one and only college party I had ever attended and starting the whole “healing process” over again,) I have quite a ways to go and with that, to further symbolize this day for me, my short film No Trespassing was released today. Both parts are below:

No Trespassing, My First Short Film

I usually keep my creative endeavors pretty secret until there is something super exciting to say about it and this is most definitely super exciting!

I wrote a vignette last year that I had never thought to do much with, especially since most of what I write ends up decaying on my hard drive, but upon meeting and speaking with filmmaker Dany Nieves, we spoke about my writing and he expressed much interest in my piece ‘No Trespassing.’ A month later, I am extremely proud to present the trailer for No Trespassing; the full film is due out on May 11. This film stars Anh Le (so no, that isn’t me in the film) and is produced by 307 Idea Factory.

This film is about child abuse, healing and having the courage to let go of your past and move on to a much brighter future.

* Click on image for full view.

There are some other creative endeavors in the works that will be surfacing here in the next few months, so watch for those and I will also be posting updates about No Trespassing as they happen.

Watch Searching for Angela Shelton–For Free!

Searching for Angela Shelton is a documentary made by none other than Angela Shelton. It started as a survey of women in America who shared her name, but evolved into a mission to end sexual violence when she found that over half of the women she interviewed for her documentary had been either raped, beaten or molested sometime in their lives. If you haven’t already seen this movie, I cannot urge you enough to buy the DVD, it is absolutely phenomenal. But here’s the best news of all…

During the month of April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, to raise awareness about sexual violence, you can watch Searching for Angela Shelton for free! All you have to do is go to Angela Shelton TV and click on the second tab over on top of the video player, click on “Searching” and the entire movie is the second option down.

I personally love this movie, I’ve seen it no less than 100 times, easy; it’s always the movie I go to when I need to get inspired or motivated to write something inspiring. It brings the comfort needed to survivors to keep going in the fight against sexual violence and it opens the eyes of those who may not know too much about the pandemic that is affecting so many men and women all over the world every day.

Go ahead, Watch the movie!

Some parts may be triggering, so if you find yourself in need of help or support, check out RAINN or the supportive community at After Silence.

Releasing Lori: Poetry on Self-Mutilation

Self-mutilation is often not given the serious attention it demands; it is often chalked up to teenage angst or a person seeking attention, which is far from the truth.

Self-mutilation has become a major public health concern and affects a large variety of people including men and women ranging from teenagers to adults; although about 75% of self-mutilators are girls and women. It is estimated that 0.75% of the general American population practices self-mutilation.

There are many forms of self-mutilation, such as cutting, burning, hitting, bruising, biting, pulling or picking at skin and pulling one’s own hair. There are many causes of self-mutilation, such as the result of strong negative emotions and feeling the need for the outside to represent the inside of one’s self as well as technique for triggering the body’s biochemical responses to pain.

Those who self-mutilate often find comfort in the arts, such as writing poetry in order to rid themselves of their emotions and what drives them to commit such acts to themselves.

Here is another short film by filmmaker Dany Nieves, whom I’ve featured on this website once before with Alison’s Cycle.

Releasing Lori is another short film from Nieves with poetry by Alison Floersch, read by Lori Beaty. It speaks about the painful truths revolving around those who self-mutilate and the emotions behind it. It is a must-see film for those who currently or have self-mutilated in the past as well as for anyone who has been affected by it or just want to know more about this public health crisis.