SILENT VOICES SPEAK: 04/09/12

MISSION STATEMENT

SILENT VOICES SPEAK started out as Silent Voices: A Writer’s Workshop, as the first group at the drop-in center at the Broadway location of Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, whose purpose is to empower it’s attendees to form and attend their own groups.

We have branched out as an independent entity. We are silent no more. We say yes to the creative possibilities of life & art...

The mission of SILENT VOICES SPEAK is to give a voice to people who are disenfranchised. Many of the participants in SILENT VOICES SPEAK are also visual and/or performing artists.

Membership is open to all.

Send submissions to lizhipwell@gmail.com.

Monday, April 9, 2012

EXHAUSTED

I wake up exhausted.
The feelings are there.
I go through the motions of living my life.

Just another day to get through.
Tie my shoe.
What do I do?
Oh yeah, tie the other one.
A brick is pulling me down
as I move ahead
step by step.
Memories tug at me,
taking me out of the present,
unprocessed and toxic.
How can I move on,
light and free,
happy and buoyant?
I can’t get the thoughts from
pulling me,
flattening me,
making my day just another day,
full of lead.
-Image & Words by Elizabeth Hipwell

FAMILY by Elizabeth Hipwell

Family is always there.
Then it pulls away,
detaches and rips apart.
Lost with no anchor.
Alone.
No one cares.
It shows up with conditions
that are hard to meet.
I may lose myself.
I can’t get back that aspect of family that I lost,
but I can find myself again,
retrieve what is important.
I never went away.
I was always there.
I let myself vacate and I can let my self return,
stronger than ever,
determined and free.
-Image & Words by Elizabeth Hipwell