Ariel Mallett: March 2019 Poet of the Month
PowerfulBeyondWords
Today marks the halfway point of 30 days of
silence
I am protesting the state of this nation
with the visceral presence
of my body
and the utter lack of words
that marks my
everyday existence
as a queer woman
as a survivor of sexual viole
VIOLENCE
as a person living with PTSD
AS A GENDERFLUID survivor
as a person who engages
in self-harm
as someone
who lives with depression
as someone who lives with SEVERE
A-N-X-I-E-T-Y
for fifteen days I have not spoken words
in public
for ten years I have lived under
a perpetual cloud of SHAME
FOR FIFTEEN MORE DAYS
I will continue to be quiet
but never again will I allow
my internal shame monster
to silence me.
Ariel Mallett is a multimedia artist who's deeply emotional work rouses empathy for the self and the other. The brash vulnerability of her work pushes the viewer to consider the beauty that can be found in suffering, encourages one to find commonality in the painful condition that is the human existence, and inspires connections otherwise inaccessible in our day to day lives.
Ariel lives in Ann Arbor, MI where she serves coffee at a local cafe and spends her days using art to process her own existence. She is a survivor of sexual assault and childhood abuse, experiences which inspired her to spend 30 days protesting the Kavanaugh Hearings and Trump Administration in silence last year. This poem is inspired by both her survivorship, and the rawness of existing in silence for 30 days in such a violent and emotional state.