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Shelter Sara Yinling They ask me how I can claim to be an ally of survivors if I have not known abuse. We are barricaded in the basement of the youth shelter where I work, me, and these two teen clients, tough kids—street weathered, defiant and sometimes I am the enemy, and sometimes a tool, and occasionally a friend. In the house above us, we hear smashing of dishes I have not called the cops They say restraint angers the soul weary of restraint So instead I have called a relative, an abuser of another form, “can you pick up your son, please?” When they ask how I can be an ally of survivors What I hear is: Have I nursed bruises from threats followed through? Have I stood up for myself and been incarcerated because of it, my body handcuffed and put in a cell, have I kept a vest of ice in the freezer, have I hid pain for so long that when it bubbles up it blacks out and rages and sends those trying to help me hiding into basements, has the state sent me back to my abuser time and time again saying “it’s not so bad—” These stories are true. They are not mine and so I am afforded the opportunity to hold them within my head but they do not belong to my body. But I have known fear for my physical being. And when this raging teen threatened me with teeth, blood, knives, fists and guns, the other ones—street weathered, defiant—stood in front of my body and said, “I’ve got your back.” They do not discriminate; a threat is a threat and my fear is so familiar that in the face of his anger they are either solidarity or betrayal, there is no middle ground. And then back to the hierarchy. He is picked up. I tell his father, to whom I have already filed numerous counts of physical abuse, “your son has an anger issue; it is not your son who is not welcome here, but his anger.” 19
“your son tells the most wonderful stories.” And walking home I feel my heart within my body, I notice that my wrists are so thin as to snap And for the next few days I think they might, that someone might hurt me, Until those days pass and it’s back to my own life: secure, unafraid for my life. I go back to watching the teenagers through my thin castle of security, while their bodies sharpen their arrows. Power Sun Meditation #1: There Is No Body Here Imani Jackson 20
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