Medusa, a name that whispered softly and supportively in my ears, inspired me to embrace and write for all who have gone through a traumatic and abusive experience.

I wrote because Medusa represents suffering and a transformation, which is not uncommon or a stranger to today’s plight of minority communities everywhere and women in general.

Domestic abuse, rape, and violence are rampant. Then, the covert abuse—brainwashing, gaslighting, grooming, the type that no one sees coming—is exhausting and has an after the trauma cloud that keeps the victim unraveling and trying to make sense of what hit them throughout the years. The emotional abuse scars one’s self-esteem and self-worth to a low point of self-degradation, leading to a dead-end recovery road.

Women, people of color, different sexual orientations have to try twice as hard or harder and, worse, keep proving why they deserve that senior position, and how, no, they did not sleep with the boss to get that position.

Life can be unfair and, to an extent, even be anguish for souls who have been through abuse and trauma and do not see the way out.

Medusa’s deadly stare turned anyone who looked at her into a stone. We turn ourselves into stone with the glare of depression, sadness, and anxiety when we lose hope—and ourselves.

Medusa’s metamorphosis from a beautiful maiden to the one who sentenced death to the wrongdoer may not be the answer in today’s world. Still, her becoming a force that fought the ungodly characters is.

Maybe, after all, she wanted us to know to go beyond the limitations set by us or society; recognize and accept who we truly are; and love ourselves to the fullest.

So, here are a few lines dedicated to Medusas everywhere, trying every day not to let their past define their future—who are trying to heal a shattering experience that led them to break into a thousand pieces.

O Medusa, Medusa.

Born mortal was your sin or the drunk beauty of your lips.

Was it your blossoming curves, the long tresses, or the roaming eye of Poseidon

What did you do to heave a head that was to be cut?

The fate of Medusa must have trembled knowing what was to come.

A beauteous maiden ravaged and plundered as a soul left in ruins.

Medusa wailed and screamed, 

She bellowed in rage or implored for mercy?

Or did you accept your fate, and comply in defiance?

Athena, you were a woman—how could you diminish Medusa?

O Athena, how could you not grieve if not share her dolor

Serpents awakened to betoken poison.

She had to be killed when she was sleeping.

But Medusa was to transform in her becoming.

Even so, she lived on with her mighty head and glare of death.

Let it be a reminder to the perpetrators. 

A Medusa is born each time there is a wrong

And, she lives on to evoke the conscious snake of a voracious force.

She will live on to falter the malevolent hands, to turn malicious into stone.

May another Medusa never be sacrificed at the altar of a shrine or temple built by society.

May we learn to walk with the times and let go of something or someone that does not serve our well-being.

May we all heal and find the courage to face the demons we have buried inside us.

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