Weeks have passed since I attended, “Break the Silence.” I think that someone will tell me that I should include a trigger warning. That I should prep people for what’s to come before it reminds them of whatever moment in their lives they survived through. That moment that keeps getting dragged into the present like a heavy iron lock clasped at your throat. In some sort of sheepish self-pity, I want to say it was hard to listen to those stories. That it was hard not to be lost in uncontrollable weeping. Maybe it’s taken me weeks to finish writing about it, because I don’t know how to write this. I don’t spend a lot of my time thinking about sexual assault or rape. So the idea of writing about it seems daunting–”Break the Silence.”
I don’t intend to tell you specifics of the stories, though know that each —I was betrayed. My friend. My family member. My sister’s husband. A taxi driver. A first date— was it’s own. The survivors sometimes would cry, other times, they’d recite the events in a calm voice of certainty, like they read from a grocery list. One story I carried out of there was a woman, after explaining her assault. Told everyone that she also was a gamer, and a knitter, and not just a sexual assault survivor. I appreciated her candor.
While the survivors stories were terrifying–I wanted to write you about the crowd. The people who listened were semicircled around a central pivot of chairs, in the center sat the survivor who told their story, then lit a candle, and set it next to others on the floor between the two. The 200 people said, “You’re Strong, You’re Courageous, You’re inspiring.” each time a survivor finished their story. And at each telling you’d see the crowd respond. When a woman explained that after she was raped at a party, she crawled into a common room filled with partiers who looked down at her and laughed. People in the crowd nodded, and the person in front of me let out a wet sob, their sobbing head fell forward, chin to chest, and their shoulders shivered. I watched the people around me as each story was told, and couldn’t help weeping with them. I knew somehow that whatever terrors I was hearing, I was surrounded by more that weren’t being shared. There were fifty-nine candles lit that day.
When “Break the Silence” finished, I talked with someone who I didn’t know was rape survivor until that day. We’d make plans about upcoming events and somehow laugh. She’d ask, “Is this the right place to talk about it?” Moments ago she told us of a system of systemic failures that lead to her rapes. Including by the people who were supposed to help her. And now, she smiled at me, and we talked about the upcoming weekend. We laughed together some.
Afterwards, I’d go out to get tacos with the friends I’d gone to the event with. One of the women I’m with mentioned the couples at the door, and how she hoped everything goes nice. Another woman with us asked if she’s worried about the couples date? The survivor said, “no, that they’ll be raped.” I took that in for awhile, and realized that 2 of the 4 women sitting with me were rape survivors. I looked around the restaurant and wondered about everyone else. One of the survivors who sat with us was a comedian. My memories of her are making a crowd of sexual assault survivors laugh as she told her story of being raped. And how the night before, she played the guitar in a kitchen, and sang to the people gathered. She has a beautiful voice.
It’s been weeks, since, “Break the Silence,” and I still don’t know what to say about what I heard. I don’t know how to place everything in the world around me. And maybe that’s a problem. Not speaking of a thing doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I think about that first time I dated someone who trusted me enough to tell me about her rape. How she stopped me in whatever you can call the middle of sex, and I layed there…thinking. what did I do, I wonder? What wasn’t I doing right? You know a lot of the “I” game. She looked at me and told me she was raped once, and that it comes up. And how I, being young and stupid, responded with wanting to find the guy. I wanted to enact revenge on him. I think I marched around the room in my boxers pumping my chest out, declaring that I was ready to kill the fucker. When I think about that twenty year old me. I wish i’d just sat down and listened to her. I wish i’d understood how much it meant for her to trust me enough to tell me what had happened. I wish I’d taken the time to listen. Thank you to everyone who shared their stories at Break the Silence. “You’re Strong, You’re Courageous, You’re Inspiring.”
with love,
Lorenzo Serna
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