To escape is to break free from a hold, but in another sense, the word also refers to dreaming. Focusing on my dreams, bringing them to life, allowed me to escape an oppressive reality, to refuse to let myself be imprisoned by a tyrannical spouse and finally separate from him. I struggled over long months, against the tyranny of a wicked and violent man, who inflicted sexual and psychological harassment, false accusations, domestic violence, so many attacks against which I fought, against which I pressed charges, and which I got rid of. And to answer the eternal question I was asked hundreds of times: “Why did you stay?”, here is my answer: “Well, I stayed because it wasn’t for me to go.” I refused to run away and leave a place that was mine and that of my child. Why would it be up to the victim to flee constantly in the face of the threat of the torturer? Why should we always allow terror to take hold of us, steal our lives? I kept what was mine and managed to get rid of what I no longer wanted. In a poetic journey, this book charts my fight against a hold. I could have written yet another book on “How to elude the traps of an evil narcissist psychopath?” But I would have felt like I was shedding light on the actions of an abuser. Others write these types of books and I respect their choice. But I preferred to use art as an antidote to counter violence. I sought peace and pleasure in poetic writing, to counter terror. I sought beauty in art, to counter hatred. I looked for love. I found what I was looking for and I drew the strength to escape, an escape to stay. Writing and photography started out as a spontaneous personal endeavour. They were born of my survival instinct being triggered. As I faced the violence of another person, I felt an irrepressible urge to externalize. I began to fill poetry notebooks, to capture the slightest movement of life with a camera and to magnify it. I felt an urgency to live, guided by the passion for