“Dead Canaries: The Bruises on Our Wrists” is a short 500-word story about the injuries that victims of sexual abuse have to live with.
Awakenings says: “J. Askew’s poetic piece on recovery imagines her yellow bruises as canaries, and magical realism provides a pathway to love of a body that has been through trauma. When these bruises transform into birds — separate living beings to be loved, cherished, and cared for — Askew moves through her pain, but not alone. Although the canaries fade away as all bruises do, Askew lives on to remember them as a survivor.”
This literary magazine is very close to my heart. Please support everything they do, even in some tiny way. The art, poetry and prose magazine aims to make visible the artistic expression of survivors of sexual violence. Not only a magazine, Awakenings currently help survivors heal through art by providing year-round programming at their gallery space in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago.
To read the story, visit the Awakened Voices site here.
Joanne Askew 