Shattered

Those boys sometimes ask how I’m doingThen they laugh when I say I’m aliveBut I know that inside they’re swearingThat they really thought I wouldn’t survive…After being sexually assaulted as a teenager, Isabella details her subsequent battle with chronic depression as she fights for a happy ending with partners fated to continue a vicious cycle of abuse and, ultimately, abandonment.A unique insight into the series of events that changed a teenage girl’s life forever and almost caused her to end it; Shattered is a poem-by-poem documentation of young love, grooming, sexual assault, death, heartbreak, psychological abuse and suicidal mindsets that spans five years and may serve to educate those seeking to understand such traumas whilst giving fellow survivors a portal to articulate their feelings and validate their truth.