Shattered

Those boys sometimes ask how I’m doing
Then they laugh when I say I’m alive
But I know that inside they’re swearing

That 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.

Isabella Jacqueline is an Australian-born writer and film director, best known for telling the “other side” of the story. Her love for literature was birthed as early as eleven years old, when she found herself penning short stories as a way of passing time on her parents’ hobby farm in the picturesque Perth Hills. However as she matured into a teenager and her exposure to the outside world grew, Isabella’s writing fast evolved into a means of articulating various traumas she could never bring herself to speak of. Now, having finally reached adulthood, Isabella has decided to share the poems that documented the darkest period of her life with the world.

Find Isabella Jacqueline on Instagram:

@isabellajacquelineofficial