The Changeling Child and the Horse: Poems of Child Abuse, Mental Illness, Suicide, Grief and Sex. (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798514547494)

Elle is a small child experiencing sexual assault when we meet her, and this chapbook sized collection tells the story of her life.
Opening with a villanelle that details how the changeling child is being abused, it is stark and repetitive to show how abuse is a cycle that does not end until someone decides to end it.
The Changeling Sestina goes on to illustrate Elle's thought process. This poem is about duality, of transference and coping mechanisms of children. She imagines that she is a changeling, and this brings her comfort. Using a sestina shows her mulling it over and looking at the same idea from different angles.
Elle goes on to be burned by the Villain and spend time in hospital where she is confronted by her own loneliness. She invents an imaginary friend in the shape of a horse in an attempt not to be alone.
Mental health fractured, Elle retreats into a world where she is the heroine in her own story and even as she grows, the horse grows with her. She puts herself in dangerous situations with her lifestyle and attempts suicide. She fails then falls in love for the first time, finding someone who understands her. Tragically the similarity between them means she ends up losing her girlfriend to suicide.
Elle tries to deal with her grief by mending bridges with her family only to be betrayed by them when they bring her abuser into the house and minimise her response to this. She returns to her previous self-destructive addictive behaviour as part rebellion, part reclamation of her sexual self.
She attempts suicide again and fails. Then she meets someone who awakens her passion. Elle learns that she can embrace giving up control in a sexual sense when there is trust and a healthy relationship. She takes a step towards not over catastrophising things as a trauma response and gives herself over to love. She gives birth to a little girl.
When her abuser dies she is thrown back into anguish as in death she will never get what she needs; an acknowledgement of the abuse that was perpetrated on her and the effect of the trauma. Elle gets angry all over again as her abuser is given a respectful funeral.
What will happen to the Changeling Child? You will learn her fate in a shocking ending.


Author: Dee Dickens
ISBN-13: 9798514547494
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 06/04/2021
Pages: 50
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.14lbs
Size: 7.99h x 5.00w x 0.12d