My Tribute to Tori

Today I would like to pay tribute to Tori Amos. For those of you who aren't familiar with Tori, allow me to introduce her.

There she is.

Tori holds a place very close to my heart because she was the first person who I ever heard tell their story about being raped. I heard it for the first time in 1993, two years after I was raped. She's a musician so she told her story through a song she wrote called, Me and a Gun.


I would listen to that song over and over again. Finally there was someone who understood my pain. And even though I wasn't ready to speak out about what happened to me then, Tori's lyrics gave me a sliver of strength every time I heard them.

In Tori's own words, she says...

"I'll never talk about it at this level again but let me ask you. Why have I survived that kind of night, when other women didn't", she says. "How am I alive to tell you this tale when he was ready to slice me up? In the song I say it was 'Me and a Gun' but it wasn't a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn't needed more drugs I would have been just one more news report, where you see the parents grieving for their daughter". "And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violation through sex". "I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and that now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability".

Tori also opened my eyes to lyrics. I had never really paid a lot of attention to lyrics before her. Her passion is what gave me one of my first dreams of grandeur. Lol! I was going to be a singer.

Well, that didn't pan out too well but I am still inspired by her passion and her courage. And so I would like to pay tribute to her.

I apologize for my webcam settings. The audio and video are totally out of sync but I find that if you just close your eyes then you don't even notice. Ha ha ha!

Tori told her story through her music. I told my story through my book. How will you tell your story? There's no right or wrong way. Just tell it. There is power in your voice!