Poet Robert Echevarria, a student at the Harvard Divinity School, sent us this poem that uses Greek myth to explore child abuse.

Perseus
The abuse wasn’t so bad.
Even when I was lifted up by my hair like the vanquished Medusa,
by some sadistic version of Perseus,
the leather crashing down on my butt and back
didn’t compare to when it was my mother’s turn…

Like that time she was thrown into the door, glass breaking,
the fallen shards glinting like fallen tears in the glow of the overhead light.

I found the heaviest object I could – a full change purse, and threw it at Perseus
to
no
avail.

I ran outside clutching a toy,
scared
and
unsure.
I became impotent at seven years old.
– Robert Echevarria

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