SOMETIMES I THINK THAT THE REASON I LOVE CHILDREN SO MUCH HAS TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT I HAD TO GROW UP SO FAST. AT A YOUNG AGE, I BECAME A VICTIM OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE, FROM THE AGE OF SEVEN TO THE AGE OF TWELVE. HOWEVER, I DO NOT LIKE TO CALL MYSELF A VICTIM ANY LONGER. I WAS A VICTIM ONLY BECAUSE I WAS THE RECEPIANT OF THE CRIMES. I, HOWEVER, AM NOT A VICTIM, I AM A SURVIVIOR. IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO REALIZE WHAT IT MEANT TO BE A SURVIVIOR. THERE JUST CAME A POINT IN MY LIFE, WHEN I MADE THE CHOICE TO ALLOW MYSELF TO BE A SURVIVIOR AND NOT A VICTIM. ONE CAN ONLY LIVE IN THE SHADOW OF THE PAST ONLY SO LONG BEFORE YOU EITHER BECOME ENGULFED IN IT OR YOU FORGET ABOUT IT. WELL, I MADE THE CHOICE TO REMEMBER IT AND TO TAKE BACK THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WAS LEFT ALONE SO MANY YEARS AGO.
Cycle Bondage
A young child has her innocence
Stripped from her possession
By an untainted, unprotected
Unknown heart of a male
Who knew only the authority of violence
That his father taught him
With the fists,
Who became to his son
The only sureness he yielded to.
Now dictates the deafness
Of the attacker,
To those of the child
That painfully cried
But no longer exists.
For now she must learn
About the everlasting responsibility
Of learning all too suddenly
What society would eventually take.
And so she took
And stole from another waiting trust
The unsaid expression of her new found hate,
Which brings the inductee
Within the realms of a cycle
No one had the courage to break.
She crashed the glass case,
In which she was placed
In a long line of members
To a club without lists,
And shattered the alm mater
Of taking without being asked,
By feeling the scourging and torture
Of the pain of her past.
Age 19
But what about the children? Who watches over them?
We do, if allow ourselves to believe in our own power to achieve it.
What part do we want to play in the cycle?That's what we have to ask ourselves.
This poem is dedicated to the boys in Potomac house