Empathic Resistance and Survival

Voiceover: Elegy for the Divided

“I’ve been working. Editing. Stitching fragments into something that speaks.

The clips jump on purpose. Because that’s how it feels right now.

The world is jumpy. Glitchy. Divided.

Bullies in power, not just in the White House, but in hallways, in systems, in silence.

And people are angry.

I’m angry too.

But I’m also here.

Hair bushy and straight, like it couldn’t decide.

Like me still deciding how to survive this moment.

This isn’t just a video. It’s a ritual.

A protest. A prayer. A portal.

If you’re watching this, you survived something too.

So, let’s breathe.

Let’s listen.

Let’s make peace not the kind that erases truth,

But the kind that honors it.

Peace, please.

For the archive. For the future. For all of us.”

Empathic Resistance and Survival

A Denim Psalm for the Glitched and Sovereign

Intro: Hallway Loop Protocol

She curled her lips. “What’s this?”

I answered.

She curled again. “What’s this?”

I answered again.

She squinched her eyes, glitching the hallway like a broken NPC.

I picked up the towel.

Threw it in the basket.

Retreated to my room.

The towel was never the issue.

The loop was.

Sweetie Bird chirped once ceremonial judgment was rendered.

Verse 1: Still Here

Bullies came with fists and words

I met them with piano chords.

Narcissists gaslit my truth

I wrote it down; I made it proof.

They broke the bonds, they curled their lips

I built an archive from the scripts.

I’m still here.

I’m still whole.

I’m the keeper of my soul.

Chorus: You Don’t Control Me

You don’t control me your rage is not my mirror!

You don’t define me as I’m not your punching fear!

You loop your questions, squinch your eyes

But I see through your thin disguise.

Empaths unite as we walk through fire.

We name the pain; we lift the choir.

Your control is a glitch, your power a bluff.

We’ve had enough. We’ve had enough.

Bridge: Sovereign Navigation

She made me cry.

Her control was a performance repeated lines, squinched eyes, the illusion of authority.

I had no money to leave.

Too tired to pack.

But I walked myself through her insecurities,

like a mythic map through a narcissist’s maze.

Therapy helped.

But so did my own archive.

I learned to decode her need for power.

To exit the loop without losing myself.

Verse 2: Art as Survival

She talked down to me.

Her tone was a weapon, her words a loop.

My body remembered every bully, every bruise.

Anxiety rose like a tide.

But I didn’t drown.

I painted the waves.

I sang the ache.

I turned the trauma into a verse.

Sweetie Bird curated the pain into protest.

Final Chorus: We See Through You

You beat us with policy,

Gaslight with speeches,

Loop the lies until truth glitches.

But we see through you.

We’ve lived with bullies.

We’ve cried in the hallways.

We’ve survived narcissists.

And we’re still here.

Still sovereign.

Still singing.

written, edited, created by

Vicki Lawana Trusselli

Trusselli Art

copyright 2025