I’m Still Here

Inspired by Eunice Paiva

I want to tell you a story, 

Of a woman. 

A wife. 

A mother. 

I want to take you to 1970s Brazil, 

To a city stripped of its soul, 

To a land reduced to rubble by a facist regime. 

I want to make you stand in her house. 

I want to put you in her shoes. 

I want to make you feel her fear. 

You live in the house at the end of the street. 

The corner where the road meets the sand, and the sand meets the sea. You live a life full of sunlight and sea brine. 

Of laughter and love. 

You can see it in the smiles on your children faces. 

You can hear it in the music which vibrates though the walls. 

You can feel it in your foyer, where your friends and family dance, grinning in the face of an uncertain tomorrow. 

You are mother. 

You are wife. 

You are brilliant. 

You are the crashing waves. 

You are the rising soufflé. 

You are a childs lost tooth, cherished. 

They must rip the warmth from you. 

They must rip away the joy. 

They must rip away your happiness, because you would’ve never given it up willingly. They close the curtains and block out the sun. 

They shut you inside and keep you on land. 

They take away your husband and never give him back. 

They gut you, because they can. 

But even with hollowed out insides, you never dim your light. 

Even in the four walls of that damp cell, the sun finds you. 

Even in the blood stained integration rooms, 

the soft orange lamp highlights the love which adorns your face. 

And then, just when you think you cannot take it anymore, 

they let you out. 

Beaten and battered they discard you, 

As if you are another scrap of trash, 

To be left for the rats to scavenge and pulverize. 

After everything they’ve taken from you, 

You are nothing to them. 

But what they don’t know is you are everything. 

You are a child, standing with sand between your toes. 

You are a young woman, bare feet pounding on hot concrete, 

You are a mother, who can no longer recognize the country you call home.

And even if you weren’t, you wouldn’t matter any less. So you dust yourself off, and begin the long walk home. You open the curtains and let the sun pour inside. 

You run to the waves and let them swallow you whole. You hold your family and try to ignore the gaping hole. It will take years, 

Decades, 

A lifetime to heal. 

Your children will grow, 

You will age, 

And your husband will never come home. 

I want to take you to 1970s Brazil, 

Then I want to take you beyond. 

I want to walk you through the years of a woman, 

A widow, 

A survivor of violence as her life continues, but her husbands does not. As all she has left is photos which never age. 

Memories that fade each day, 

And after years of waiting, 

A death certificate which brings a smile to her face. 

I want to tell you a story, because it is the truth.