My first encounter with a man was not gentle or loving.
There was no faint touch of the lips that eventually led to more.
There were no butterflies in my stomach as I waited in anticipation.
There was only a child having her innocence ripped away by a man,
35 years her senior.
I was too young to know about the inevitability of ****** attraction.
But, I wasn’t supposed to be the object of any man’s desire at that age, was I?
I was a young girl meant to navigate through my firsts with an endearing sense of naivety.

Where is that sweet girl?
I think I lost her.
Now, I can’t seem to remember her.
There is a gaping hole in my soul that mourns for that girl;
What she could have been.

Oh, how he wrecked her.
He took her free will and crushed her spirit.
He preyed on a young child; warped her beyond belief.
He made her question if life was worth living.
She begged for mercy.

My cries were silenced by the overwhelming fear of his authority.
I was consumed by my deeply rooted deference to men.
I had never experienced so much pain.
He scratched, groped, and pushed his way into getting what he wanted.
That perverse moment of gratification in exchange for the loss of a young girl’s hope in humanity.