Look at her.
The child you carried for nine months in your womb,
You do not know her at all.

You cannot bare the thought of her growing up.
She is dating boys,
And boys have hurt her.
They have taken advantage of this beautiful daughter of yours,
In every way possible.

She refuses to see herself as special.
The world has told her differently,
But she has something,
A gift, that they cannot steal from her.
One thing they cannot take away.

A glimmer in her eye,
A bounce in her step,
Even though she often wishes that she could cease to be,
Or that she could vanish,
She has the hope of a village.
And she carries it with her.

You will look at her and think,
"What a shame."
Much of the world has already written her off,
Calling her a lost cause.

She has fallen,
She has had problems,
But they are not her.

She has gone days without human contact,
She has lost friends for reasons out of her control,
And some of which were in her control.
She has lived a story
A series of chapters that other people have written for her,
But she is learning to become her own author.

So she is special.
She does not see it, you may not see it,
But she has hope.

Her beauty starts with her broken laugh,
Her gracious heart,
Her empathetic spirit.
It can destroy her,
But it builds her up as well.

With the curve of her smile
Her defined silhouette,
And her bright and opened mind.
She is a woman
In every sense of the word.

I find no luster in anything
And I thought bringing you back
Would bring meaning to my life again.
I would love you to the moon and back
If you would only let me.
But instead,
You left me hanging among the stars.

Clothes shed like old skins
Our feelings are left on the floor somewhere in between.
We will not stop, cannot stop
The smell of you makes my eyes sting
And your touch makes me melt.

Our lust burns like a cigarette
And love is the smoke that chokes us
Until we both black out.

In fact,
You bought me a pack of Marlboros that day
On your way to my house.
We sat on the deck intertwined
As I smoked my life away.

And now
I don't know what to feel
But it is better than feeling nothing at all.

You have these wrong judgements about me
And the haughty expectations.
I bet if someone asked a question:
"Do you know your daughter?"
You would say
"Yes."

After all,
You have lived in the same house with her
For sixteen and a half years.
But you can only begin to imagine
The life that I lead.

You know I am liberal,
But my feminist views would shock and disgrace you.
Get your conservative head out of your ***, please.
And realize that I care about people
Not politics.

You know I was molested when I was young.
You do not know that a friend has since
Abused my body in unmentionable and uninvited ways.
But I cannot tell you this.
I do not want you to reinforce the idea
That I am overreacting.

You think I am selfish and that all I do
Is pick fights.
I'm actually terrified of rejection
And have minimal self-esteem.

You think that I enjoy going to church
But truthfully, I do not agree with their theology or interpretations
Of most things.

Plus, most Christians are hypocrites.
It is so easy to point the finger
Without actually spending a day in someone else's life.
Oh did I forget to mention
I'm bisexual, I drink, and I have *** before marriage
I'm not exactly up to their standards
Or yours.

This just scratches the surface
Of the reasons why you don't know your daughter at all.

You are washed up
Out-dated
Old-fashioned
Never fashionable.

You treat me like an anomoly
Like my intelligence is withered.
Your goal in life is to make me feel small.

In response, I stand up.
Shout
Scream
Belt
Until you can no longer ignore me
Or put me in my place.

I love when you get that look on your face.
That look of utter
Disgust
Disconcertion
Defeat.
It just goes to show that
I know how to outsmart you.

This is why I need feminism.
Why I have embraced it.
Because everything that makes me "unlady-like"
Makes a man ideal in your eyes
And in society's.

To rid the world of
So-called human beings like you.
While in reality
You are nothing but a sexist.

It started with a game.
She was innocent, but she wanted to be older.
Grow up too fast.
Be a "big kid".
After all, they have all the fun, don't they?
All her cousins were older, and she was always the one tagging along.

She hung out with an older cousin.
About seven years older than her.
Alone, in a room
A bedroom.
Just them two, and so he says
"Let's play a game."

This sounded intriguing to her seven year-old ears.
So she responds:
"Game?"

"Yes, truth or dare."
Is his reply.
They play.
Several questions in, he says:
"Crawl on top of me and kiss me."
He motions to his crotch.

The girl is horrified.
"No!  That's icky!"
She says.
He lies, tells her it is what all the big kids do.
Her seven year-old brain is confused.
"Really?"

"Yes, don't you want to be a big kid?  Oh come on."
She considers.  Considers.  Considers.
He taps into her emotions one more time.
"Fine, I'll get someone else to play then."

This child does not want to be seen as a coward.  A loser.  A little kid.
The rest is a blur.

The factors:
A bed
Asperger's Syndrome
A teen on his back
A terrified child climbing on top of him

The actions:
Hands, his on her torso
Kissing, her on his crotch
Touching, him.  Her.  Both players find fault.

The results:
Molestation.
Guilt.
Fear.
Promiscuity.
Shame.
Silence.

­Suddenly this game isn't fun anymore.
He doesn't do it again, never even threatens her.
They see each other plenty and act perfectly fine.
It accumulates in her for seven years, until she tells a guidance counselor.
Freshman year, fourteen, tender age.
She lets go of her secret, and by the end of sophomore year has become very confident.
Junior year she is flying, and that is where the story leaves off

My story, my (somewhat) happy ending.
I still struggle every day.
When society teaches girls not to be abused instead of boys not to abuse,
I cringe.
How was I supposed to know what was right and what was not at age seven?
I was not at fault.

What I would like to know is
When men are going to step up and take accountability
When men are going to say enough is enough
When men are going to stand up with their *****, molested and assaulted
Sisters, girlfriends, mothers, and friends

Guys, most likely a female you are in close accordance with has been abused
Whether you know it or not
According to some insane one in three statistic
I am asking you, begging you, pleading with you
Stand up and speak out

Educate each other
Create a new definition of "manliness"
Not just who can get laid the most
But who is the most respectful

Considering most ****** assaulters are men
Please stand up for me.
From every sexually abused woman, child and man on this planet

I tried to block you out.
I cup my hands over my ears,
Sing some immature tune
To keep your memory away.

It didn't work.

My mind still goes,
To the way you touched me then.
To the way your strong, stretched fingers
Traced my childish frame.
To what you made me do.

I still replay a movie in my head.
"It's just a game" you promised.
"All the big kids do it."
No. They don't.

You're so ****** up that you
Were able to convince me that
Something's wrong with me.
I didn't ****** a child.
I didn't lie to and coerce a seven year old
To give into my own deranged needs and desires.
You did that, remember?

Part of me almost feels
Sorry for you.
I know you have your problems
That you were born with
But that is not my fault
And that is certainly not
A seven year-old version of me's fault, either.

I told about what you did to me
When I was fourteen.
Some people say it must have been nearly impossible
To keep a secret like that for seven years.
It was honestly harder for me to break that secret.

Part of me was emboldened.
Part of me started to feel okay.
Until it all happened again.

My ex and I have been intimate
But it is always consensual.
When a friend took advantage of me
Right after some tragic events took place
I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't speak.
I couldn't think.

It happened so fast
But we didn't *****.
I found my voice to deny that,
Avidly.

That, however
Is a little less black and white.
The way you abused me, clearly
Was wrong, illegal, and disgusting in every sense of the word.
I understand that.
I do not understand what he did to me
And it has left me more confused than anything else.

I won't lie to you,
I am ****** about what you did to me
Still, to this day.
I would never confront you about it
I love your mother too much to hurt her that way.

I am ****** about what he did to me, too.
I still have the world's hardest time
Going to school, to work, anywhere
Out of fear that I will see him.

When I do see him,
I feel my breaths get short and raspy
And my heart beats too quickly for me to catch up
My body shakes,
And I get an overwhelming nauseous sensation.

However, I am trying to cope with this.
It will not keep me bound.
You never kept me bound.
I am breaking through every chain
That has strangled me like a noose.

I am accepting this
With every bone of my being
So I can move on with my life
So I can teach others
So I can become stronger
No thanks to you.

Inhale, feel, lets the flavors collide.
**** it down if you can
Every taste from your poisonous gauntlet
Reminds me of me your kiss.

Passionate, I keep sipping.
I love you more than I love myself.
You have become the reason I breathe,
And you will prove to be the reason I die.

My skin under my eyes loses color.
It is tired from the things you have thrown at it.
Trying to combat you is a lost cause.

In those moments,
I look into your brown eyes
And try to find something weak
Something human.
Your blank stare frightens me
As it is comparable to a demon, the devil
Devoid of remorse, or guilt, or sorrow.

Your words cut deeper.
They are the IV in my veins
They penetrate my skin
And invade my bloodstream
Yet, I continue to hook their machines
Up to my comatose body.

I have gone from having a bright smile
To wearing a perpetual look of anguish.
You have aged me ten years.

I stare down at my hands as they tremble.
My eyeballs have sunken into my head
I am a ruin of anything lifelike.

It is a defective disposition
But can it be cured?
An addiction is a pleasure is a curse
That grows as you feed it.

I must cut myself off from you, my lifeline,
Completely.

You are corrosive
Bad for my health,
Your smell makes me gag
And your stare makes me cringe.

Every time I talk to you,
I need a cigarette.
My body starts to sweat
And I cannot look at your face.

You must be a demon
Has the Devil sent you?
Or maybe it was God
To mark all of my transgressions.
I can't decide which is my punishment
Being in your general vicinity
Or the flashbacks that keep me from sleeping.

Maybe I'm going crazy,
Off the deep end, as they say.
All I remember is your curled, slimy lips
As they pressed against mine.
Your pudgy, grimy hands
As they explored my body.
Areas they had no right to trespass.

Then your memory triggers his.
His low, barely-audible voice
Penetrating my eardrums as if it was a siren
The way he looked at me, a child
As if I was much older.

His hands, I remember those too
They roamed the, at that time,
Untraveled and desolate crevices of my silhouette
A child's.

I remember how when I crawled on top of him
The journey felt like it took years.
His long legs seemed even longer than they were
And I seemed even smaller than I was.

The two of you have each destroyed
Different parts of me.
One part was innocence
The other was control.
Now I have neither.

You have taken everything from me
And I will give my life to get it back.

A sheer screen of sweat lines my forehead
And trickles down my blushing cheeks
My body is being abused
At my own hand
As I zone out
Let it take me over.

My chest takes the worst beating
Sores abundant and a plethora of welts
Riddle my pasty skin.
If I wear a shirt with any cleavage at all
I make sure my scars are hidden
Like a well-kept secret.

My face is not far behind
The second line of combat.
My own nails, tweezers, anything
Will pick off any blemish they come across
And leaving the house without makeup on?
Forget it.

Who's to tell me I'm sick
Or even wrong?
You taught me what to do, after all
Mom, I learned this from you.
You thought you kept me sheltered from your
Habits and insecurities.
There was no way you could have.

And Daddy
Are you to say you're not to blame
For criticizing me for years?
For stressing me out in addition to
The stress I impose upon myself?

Do either of you know?
Yes, Mom, you do.
Do either of you care?
You tell me to cut it out
And then we laugh it off.

In your defense,
You do not understand the severity of my picking.
You only see the best of it.

Still, I cannot ask myself why I might do this
Childhood abuse
Perfectionism
Depression
Actions
And reactions
Of my parents.

I ask myself why not.
*...

Open your eyes,
open your eyes,
it's gone now,
and you're free.

Open your eyes,
please realize,
you're the artist now,
no longer bound to the petty limits of others'.

Open your eyes,
see the stain on your predecessors throne,
Realize the imperfection they wrought,
and the pain that followed.

Open your eyes,
artist,
open your eyes,
and give us your best.

Give us your best,
or be torn away,
cheap paper in the breeze,
minding its step.

Open your eyes,
see the protection the artist gave you,
see the shields you've splintered,
and the bridges you've burned.

Perhaps one day it will not matter,
until that day,
sit in splendor,
chained to your cold guilt.