Violence, Control, and Other Kinds of Love

By Ceò, Lota Carolina Aisling, Jess Eise and 4 more

This anthology of short stories and poetry explores the many facets of love, focusing on the dark, painful, and heartbreaking with a touch of redemption at the end. Interspersed are quotes and statistics to emphasize the impact of domestic violence in the world around us.

Together we can stop this vicious cycle. Sharing stories and understanding sheds light on unacceptable behavior and empowers victims. Start a conversation, learn, understand. Empathize. When we share our stories we can change the world.

A portion of the proceeds from this anthology will be used to support victims of domestic violence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aurelia Maria Casey
• Release date: Dec 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519908810

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Violence, Control, and Other Kinds of Love

A Collection of Poetry and Short Stories in Support of Domestic Violence Awareness

Edited by Aurelia Maria Casey

Copyright Notice

Abyssinian Books

© 2015 by Abyssinian Books

Cover Design © 2015 by Adrijus G of RockingBookCovers.com

Print ISBN: 978-1-942249-07-8

Copyright to the individual poetry and short stories is owned by the authors. The right to include the poetry and short stories in this anthology was licensed from each author.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1979, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission.

For all victims and survivors of domestic violence, wherever you are. May you find strength and healing.

It’s the children the world almost breaks who grow up to save it.

— Frank Warren

Publisher’s Note

Any resemblance to factual events, people, or places is coincidental in the fictional poetry and short stories included in this anthology. Any personally identifiable information in the memoir and creative non–fiction poetry and short stories has been eliminated or changed in order to protect the innocent from the guilty.

Editor’s Note

I am sitting here heartbroken for all the people I know who have suffered abuse of any kind. At the same time, I feel a little guilty for being heartbroken because their strength, the beauty of their souls, would not shine so brightly if they hadn’t been tempered by the horrors of our world. I wish they had not experienced these awful things. I wish our society would be more supportive of survivors, male or female, child or adult, anyone who has suffered trauma in their home: the one place meant to provide us with safety, love, and comfort.

Home should be a place of caring supportive love.

How many people do you know who chose their college major because my parents would kill me if I don’t do pre‐med or something similar?

Words, even words meant to encourage your child to achieve, to pursue your dreams for them, those words can be abusive. Those words can leave your child incapable of true success because you have stifled the joy out of them. When your child is old enough to work, you should stop telling them what to do and instead ask them. Find out what they want to do and help them learn how to be successful at what ever their passion happens to be. Don’t say only doctors and lawyers earn enough to live a comfortable life. Frankly, that’s bullshit.

Don’t tell someone they can’t draw or they can’t dance because they only need more time and better education. Learning happens when we stand on our own two feet, when we are pushed to do on our own what we never thought possible.

Domestic violence is not about men beating their wives, although that is one small piece. Domestic violence is controlling the actions, words, emotions of members of your family. Domestic violence is teaching that this control is normal, acceptable. It is not. Domestic violence is speaking harmfully about your family to others.

Most men in modern times were taught as they grew up that hitting women is not OK. Women did not grow up with the converse lesson. Perhaps there is a lesson taught not to harm others, but it is not so specific. Personally I know that at least three of my female close friends and family are survivors and that at least two of my male close friends and family are survivors. However, one of these female survivors has told me that the men in her group therapy far outnumber the women.

There are programs at colleges and universities to teach women to speak up if something happens to them. To get rape kits done and to report abuse at school and in the workplace.

There is nothing to encourage male victims to do the same. The rejection male victims receive from police and from society forces them into silence. Silencing victims of any race, any gender, any sexual orientation, any socio‐economic background hurts us as a society as much as it hurts the individual fighting his or her inner battle against the psychological repercussions of the abuse they suffered.

Silencing victims hurts us as a society because it prevents us from making our communities warm supportive places. A