the innocents

My mind has been eaten up these days with memories and thoughts about abuse. My own ghastly story, and the stories of other women that I know. It is too common. It makes me feel so many things at once that I have trouble picking out the emotions in singularity. Rage. Disgust. Shame. Shock. Fear. Despair. Pain.

A desire for oblivion. To not-know. To un-know.
To never have known.

I know few innocents, left untouched. But I would do anything in my power to see to it that they remain innocent, remain untouched. Never know what I know, they way that I know it. I suppose they might know of it, eventually. The suffering, and the aftermath. They might.

---------------------------------------------------

I ache. I ache for myself and for all of the women who once were innocent little girls, who have been lied to, taken advantage of, violated, used up, cast aside, thrown away. The women who thought they deserved it, or thought that there was nothing else in life for them. The ones who wondered why, but didn't ask. The ones who pretended it had never happened at all.

Their stories hit me in a place that is still raw.

I am overwhelmed with a desire to help, to fix it, to soothe. For myself as much as anyone. But all I can do is be. Be here. And in being here, testify that each of us is the author of our own life. That we can take the pen from the hand of anyone who stole it (or tried to steal it) from us, and make marks that may wobble or slant at first, but will gain, over time, sureness and clarity.

I am still here. And you're here, too. Thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing. Remembering. There were people in my life before; people who did what they could to destroy me.

But I am still here. They are gone, and I am still here.