Sinéad

Rebecca Evans'"Shuhada' Sadaqat"

The Sinéad series continues!

Nuts and Bolts from Sonya

— 5 min read
Rebecca Evans'"Shuhada' Sadaqat"

Hello there! We have just four entries left in our series of essays to support our book: Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O'Connor Means to Us. First, I wanted to apologize to Tamara MC for running her piece yesterday with the wrong author and title in the body of the piece. The email header is correct, and you can read the corrected post here.

Buy the book!

We’ve been busy with the next leg of promoting the book, which just celebrated its one-month birthday! You can see a preview of an interview I did with About the Authors TV here, which will be released soon.

I wanted to also give a shout-out to another book released this week, So Heavy a Weight: Creative Writers on Women’s Reproductive Health, edited by Stephanie Vessely. I have an essay in the collection, along with a bunch of other great writers.

Today we have a beautiful original poem by Rebecca Evans, “Shuhada' Sadaqat”

Past entries in this series:

Shuhada' Sadaqat

Rebecca Evans

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIn 1987, my suitemate pulled me
through our shared bathroom, played
“Troy” again and again and again.

We were so young then.

I sat, crisscrossed on military
commercial carpet stretched
’cross her dorm floor.


We listened to that song all day.


We—my military sisters and me—
wished we could brave the world
like her, shave our heads and show
them—the men above us, over
us, on top of us. Show them—
the men—we needn’t measure up

to 35-10, to military dress,
to male standards
of the female body.

Tell me, when did the light die?


We—my military sisters and me—
wanted to write poems for
black boys on mopeds. Instead
we left Kurdish refugees,
left them to die. We didn’t
know…

You mustn’t kill more
than 10% of a nation.



We—my sisters and me—
watched as no one listened,
no one took her seriously.

Instead, they took her down.

They took her.

They took.

While we became quieter,

If they hated me,
they will hate you.



In the center of that Kurdish conflict,
we—my military sisters and me—
huddled ’round picnic-like tables
at the All Ranks club, blowing off
steam,

Anybody wanna drink
before the war?

I reached for the bathroom door.
From behind, someone yanked
my ponytail. I thought it a joke,
’til I’m slammed into the wall,
hot stench of Navy-boy breath
singeing my face.

I pretend-laughed as one hand
smashed my throat, the other
ripped my panties. One moment—
feels like 30—and the event,
because that’s what we—
my military sisters and me—
called these situations—

in one moment, the event
ends and I forgot to piss.

War was always worse
from the inside for us—
my military sisters

and me.

You’d think I’d report
something like that.

…never meant to hurt you…

I’d no voice, my throat
mushed with rage,
with rape.

I knew him as Navy
because of his uniform.
I knew myself as navy too,
a navy blue bird swallowing
my bones and body away
with drink and binge.



We—my sisters and me—
thought ourselves like her.

We didn’t know the way we aligned,
one alongside the other, alongside
the other, like the victims
she stood up for.

We never talked about this.

We still don’t.

We purged.
We starved.
We tried to hold our knees tight.
We maintained our bearing,
no matter the price.

See how the glass is raised?


she never packed a bomb

she didn’t need to



That day, 1987, when I heard “Troy”
was the first time I remember crying.

It’ll take another 22 years before I re-
crisscross, this time on my shower
floor, centered in my million-
dollar home in my perfect-appearing
marriage, the whooshing muffling
my shower-howls.

I knew I needed to escape
abuse, knew if I stayed,
I’d be silenced for good.

Is that a dagger
or a crucifix I see?

My body shook despite shower steam.
Oh! how my body knows fear.
Perhaps I needed the heavy to search
for myself

Will I want myself?

I do not want what I haven’t got?



Did I tell you how “Troy” felt
in my body?

If you asked me then, 1987,
I’d tell you that I felt nothing,
tell you the way I felt was like ash.

I’d tell you military bearing
transfers to never-ending game-
facing, which, by definition, equals

silence.



Today I wonder the difference
between military training
and predator grooming.

If you ask me now,
the way that song felt,
the way that song feels,

I’d tell you it’s like giving
birth on a bathroom floor,
like a fierce pulsing in your
jugular, like raging fists
within your womb, like breath
turning tornado, erupting all
your feelings for all of time,
and yes…

I’m still wild,
but not lost.


All we—my sisters and me—
wanted was for someone to leave
the light on, to listen to the man
at the liquor store, to fly closer
to the sea, to live by our own
policies, and drink something new.

Anything new.

It was dangerous
after Sunday.

We knew this.

It was part of our training.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedRebecca Evans writes the difficult, the heart-full, the guidebooks for survivors. Her work includes a full-length poetry collection, Tangled by Blood (Moon Tide Press, 2023) giving voice to childhood sexual trauma and healing, and a collection-length poem, Safe Handling (Moon Tide Press), weaving disability and medical industry challenges. Her forthcoming collection of flash essays, AfterBurn (Moon Tide Press, 2026) offers social commentary on surviving sexual assault. Her teachings combine visual art and empowerment and include over 20 years of working with teens in the Juvenile System. Evans is a disabled veteran and co-hosts Radio Boise’s “Writer to Writer” show each month.

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xoxoxox

Sonya

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