Things We Haven’t Said: Sexual Violence Survivors Speak Out

Things We Haven’t Said is a powerful collection of poems, essays, letters, vignettes and interviews written by a diverse group of impressive adults who survived sexual violence as children and adolescents. Structured to incorporate creative writing to engage the reader and informative interviews to dig for context, this anthology is a valuable resource of hope, grit and honest conversation that will help teens tackle the topic of sexual violence, upend stigma and maintain hope for a better future.

There are days when I am less stardust than sawdust, less survivor than victim, but that does not mean that the reclamation of my own body is any less eternal. -Jane Cochrane

How to describe the feeling of not being believed? It is the feeling of disappearing. -Stephanie Oakes

I used to want to hurt you, to break you, to give you the sort of nightmares I still have so many years later. -Melissa Marr

It’s so easy to say you’ll fight when it’s not happening to you. But then it was happening to me. And I locked up. My bones had all linked together and I was still. -Bryson McCron