When I look into your eyes,
I see a child trapped in a teenage body,
A soul that understands the evil of the world,
More than anyone else I know.
There is something dead inside.
I see it.
Your childhood gone forever.
You were young, so young,
Before your childhood was stolen from you,
Stolen from us.
Both facing the same demon without even realizing it.
You, my dear, are my best friend.
Had I come to you sooner admitting what happened I might have been able to stop it from happening to you.
I blame myself every day for everything he did to you.
If I had let him do it more to me, maybe, he wouldn’t have needed to steal your innocence too.
As I watch you cry yourself to sleep night after night,
I wish I could take all of your pain away.
But I can’t.
It wouldn’t have been ******* away.
At first, it was just a hug that lasted a little too long.
Then it was the bruises.
The wandering hands.
And then, it was a knife to my throat as he tried to rip off my clothes.
I may have been 12, but you were 10, you knew nothing about “relationships” or “true love”
For the longest time you couldn’t even look a boy in the eyes
I only noticed, because neither could I.
This secret we both shared eating us up on the inside.
To where we could no longer trust anyone of the male population
Not even our dads, our brothers, our grandparents.
We swapped every face with his.
But yet, maybe my jeans too sizes two big were too tight.
Maybe my choker collar tee shirt was cut too low.
Maybe I was sending him mixed signals by
Somehow meaning yes when I said no
And meaning go when I told him to stop.
Or maybe, it was because he knew I was too weak to tell anyone.
That made him do what he did at school, on the bus, in my house, in the woods, at the park.
Every day for two years ripping away a piece of my soul.
Once or twice he even had his friends to egg him on.
To hold me down
To cheer as I was more exposed then I ever wanted to be.
I’ve broken up with every boyfriend I’ve had.
In three years, that has been 2 boys.
Because it takes a whole lot for me to even consider giving a guy a chance.
One lasted 2 weeks before he tried to kiss me and I almost broke his back from pushing him on the concrete.
The other lasting a year helping me to heal everything that monster had broken inside of me until I got so close to him, I didn’t know what else to do but run away.
I know it only lasted because he was too scared to touch me.
And, it broke my heart more than it ever should have.
Because he has been the only guy who ever cared.
Who I’ve ever loved.
But the idea of love terrifies me.
And I know it does you too.
You might be almost thirteen now, with a boyfriend who “loves you”
But I can still see you flinch when he touches you.
You blame it on yourself.
But you did nothing wrong.
We did nothing wrong.
We need to stop blaming the victims.
And one day, things will be okay again.