Safety was in hiding deep inside

dark safer still then there with them

Learned quickly of her name, shame

filthy whore, bitch who like the

Dog in heat raised men’s organs

just by being there, poor man

Can’t control these things, needs woman

or small girl child to fix this throbbing

Thing that hangs like so much

rotting meat between their legs

Hear the courage it takes to reach

through hell, retrieving anger raging soul

See the thousand demons faced to

know the truth of girl child beginning

Count drops of sweating blood

during painful repeated rapes

Feel the terror lived, horror

torture chamber long survived

Allow awareness to settle isolation

secrets kept, the only protection

Thirty years and more being that

which woman is allowed to be

Developed that part of female soul

that was accepted as woman’s role

Kindness understanding tenderness, compassion

doing for others, brings dignified place in the world

Listen carefully, hear the jingle of fragments

shattered glass, pieces of woman’s life

Desperation calls deep within laying

claim to other voices, lion’s rage

Now at long last

She knows her name

-Betsy-

November 1989