Years After

By Emma Boittiaux

*Trigger warning: Please note this material may be triggering for sexual assault survivors

Sex,

I want to say this word

Fully, lightly

I want my orgasms to be free

From any violence and heavy thoughts

I want them to be only mine

Beautifully mine

You took this reality away from me

That night, in between your walls

Your naked body over mine

This dream died.

That night I did not wanted to give you

Everything that you wanted

So you took it

You grabbed every inch of my intimacy

Everything that was mine.

You were not even afraid a second

Of the crime you were committing

Worst than that you named it

You sentenced me

“ Now I’m gonna rape you”

Even with you saying it loudly

It took me a year

A year to name

What you did to me that night.

Few hours of hate and violence

For maybe a lifetime of recovery.

When I finally named it

I named myself a rape victim

With all the shame that came with it.

At night I wonder,

Are you ashamed ?

Is it eating you like it’s eating my soul ?

Years after,

After hours of thinking,

Educating myself on this word

I was ready.

Not be over it

Oh no I will probably never be.

Although I was ready to name myself

; A rape survivor.

I do not want to be your victim anymore

I am the one that survived you.

I am not afraid and ashamed anymore

I can say loudly

He raped me.

I am not defining myself with this word

But I am naming a crime

Thing that we don’t do enough.

I will not silence myself anymore on your actions

Too many woman have

Didn’t felt like they had a choice

Or it was just too hard for them.

Through me saying it

Discussions, confessions were born.

Painful ones,

From my loved ones

Of their stories,

Where a man forced himself on them.

Every story broke me a bit more

But every one made me speak out more.

For all the rape survivors

I will keep telling this story

I will not be afraid of those words.

Coming forward is not always an option

The justice system is not made for us

It can be way too painful.

So I am getting justice my way I am writing it.


Emma is a French multidisciplinary artist, now based in London since studying at Central Saint Martins.
From her 3D work to her photography it has always been centered on people, their body and their skins.
About two years ago, writing also took an important place in her practice by bringing those portraits and bodies to life through poetry adding another intimate dimension to the photographs. The skin starts telling a story that her words continue. She also uses poetry to tell her story as a woman who has been through abuse and living with endometriosis, hoping to make other women feel less alone.

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