Category: child sexual violence

• Already a goner

  I’m sick of apologizing for your behavior,
  the way you walk up to strangers,
  masking within you the danger
  of a raper and his enabler.

  Stop approaching my friends
  or the folks you think could lend
  compassion or hope for amends
  with the daughter you condemn

  in your insistent denial –
  deafening silence for miles upon miles;
  the way you won’t refute
  or accept well-earned rebuke

  for the things he did under your nose,
  believing now the lies he’s composed,
  simply because you don’t dare
  to admit you never really cared

  that your daughters weren’t safe
  from the same terrors you braved.
  Rather, your first priority
  remains to him – all your loyalty –

  because unfortunately for you
  and for her and me too,
  you are one of the ones
  who failed to plunge

  into your own depths of pain
  before repeating the past again.
  Instead, trusting not in instinct, but false promise
  that he’s not interested in incest.

  But, you know what I know
  in that place down below –
  the raper inside him made you ask
  because he reminded you of your past.

  Yes, we both know that our sixth sense,
  refined by years surviving violence,
  tells us when we’re too close
  to those

  capable of ravaging small
  bodies. After all,
  we know better than most
  that rapers take their time to encroach.

  I’m convinced you only begged
  for what should be able to remain unsaid
  because you knew he was just like
  the men who made surviving your plight.

  So I’m asking- No! To you, I’m telling:
  it would be more compelling
  to believe that you miss your daughter
  if you stopped protecting her father –

  the man you so regrettably chose
  to stay with despite all of the blows
  he landed on your body and mine;
  Damage that withstands test of time.

  See, I’m done asking and requesting;
  in my family of origin, no longer investing;
  because after more than forty years,
  I’m done crying wasted tears

  on a mother who at the end of every day
  lies next to my raper, and in this way,
  chooses denial over integrity and honor.
  Before I was born, I was already a goner,

  having you as my mother, who at the end
  refuses to believe or condemn
  that she was complicit
  in my elicit
  upbringing of incest.

  September 19, 2025

  csa, family, fiction, flashbacks, incest, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual assault, trauma, writing

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• I didn’t forget

  Can you really forget the feeling of safety
  when dad was the first man to rape me?
  They say my body forgot and now must relearn –
  like it’s as simple as choosing the upturn,
  like it’s just in my head, the embodied feeling of dread.
  As simple as riding a bike,
  insisting bodies can’t NOT know what it’s like
  to live more than just under fire;
  my activated nervous system was simply acquired.

  But I beg to differ,
  seeing as how I remain undelivered
  after all the remedies known to date
  proven to erase from complex bodies the word rape.
  No, it’s only your judgmental mouths
  that are most likely bound
  to remember what it felt like “before;”
  only they can live out the meaning of “restored.”

  But when you’re like me, a child
  by my daddy defiled,
  turned belly down,
  taught not to make a sound –
  easier when into my eyes
  he didn’t have to deny;
  but he did in fact try
  to drown out all my cries.
  So, tell me WHEN you claim safe entered?
  Because all I remember
  is a body dismembered
  by the ones who were meant
  to such a little body protect.

  Tell me when was THE moment
  my sense of safety left the present?
  Because sense only comes from first feeling
  love unconditional and unyielding.
  But all I know is the white flag
  of my mother, and the drag
  of my father’s hands, bending into submission
  the daughter – only loved on condition
  of my silence
  about unfathomable violence
  perpetrated by dad
  and mom denying it was really that bad.

  
  Tell me WHERE safe disappeared
  off to in the rear
  view mirror of my timeline?
  As benign
  as lost keys to a car –
  the kind that could’ve taken me far
  away from the two bedroom apartment
  where they laughed off all my sister’s and my torment.
  Tell me again HOW I’ve forgotten
  what it was like before all the rotten
  tastes and smells of my dad on top
  of me, telling him to stop
  to no avail.

  
  SHOW me now how my body failed
  to hold onto this MYTH of safe?
  When there was no safe before rape.

  September 19, 2025

  csa, family, flashbacks, incest, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual assault, trauma, writing

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• Like a hatchet

  You tell me to bury the hatchet
  when I’d rather use it to fracture
  the lives of the ones who took their sharp
  ills out on my body, now remarked
  

  yet, able to see who benefits from such a plea;
  silence the echoing screams
  pouring out of me without fair warning.
  From suffering to scorning,
  not just from the scars of their weapons of choice
  but from the kindhearted ways you, too, silence my voice –
  my only real weapon now that I’ve grown
  up old enough to choose to own
  the damage that results from causing a racket.

  
  So, no I will not put down my hatchet
  because what your request really means
  is to wipe my face and hands real clean,
  fall in line with the “forgiving” others,
  stop being unsightly and such a bother.
  But I’ve tried to bleach my collar and nail beds real white
  I put up the darndest of fights,
  and yet I’ve learned in all my failing;
  no matter what I do, you’re always complaining.
  I’ll never be washed white as snow.
  It’s because there’s no way to erase what I already know;
  that the likes of you and the others who
  so blindly continue
  to cover up dark truth in white linens
  are the realest of child-raping villains.

  The story in my bones, far more spooky
  than the fire burning in me like a fury.
  Despite the risk of speaking, I’m still here wielding
  this hatchet; so fucking unyielding
  is what I became when my parents turned into monsters –
  the saving grace that my broken mind conjured
  in the middle of a terror that destroys,
  creates in living bodies the deepest of voids.
  When just like my rapers, also invaders
  were the onlookers, determined blind fakers,
  insisting they don’t see
  anything wrong with what was done to me.
  They dare now insist and demand
  I put down my weapon on their condescending command.
  

  But still my hatchet remains in my hands –
  I’ll carry it all over this stolen land,
  with it mark up the books, records of all that they took
  from me and the many adult survivors, butt of your insults
  and wary glances from the ones who wouldn’t take chances
  of ruffling feathers by considering whether…
  The truth is that children who ask for help
  have already survived what can’t be unfelt…
  Or, that children who muster enough sound
  to ask why it’s normal for dads on their kids pound
  or why mothers are too sick and sad
  to see the ugliness inside their baby dads…
  Or, that kids who simply say hey,
  I get hit by three set of hands every day…
  Are worth trusting enough to take a second fucking look.

  
  You are the same, like those who misunderstood
  that the truth cuts and tears
  and though bleeding doesn’t always seem fair,
  sometimes that’s what it takes to salvage
  the good left in all the wreckage;
  not just of the bodies who bled as victims,
  but of the ones who, like you, the villains
  who plowed and plundered, raped and broke apart
  innocent bodies left alone in the dark
  shadows of your turned backs.

  
  That’s why I continue to hack
  away with the coldness of my blade.
  For my voice is all that was saved
  when I finally grew old enough to search for ways
  to do more than sit and pray for the body I had before
  I became so badly beaten and torn
  from the inside out, despite your dissociative doubt
  that one so well put-together could have endured
  the process of witnessing in silence all that is impure.

  
  My hatchet, you so greatly fear
  is my proof that I came too near
  to the underbelly of human nature –
  the stuff you turn sterile in lectures
  and podcasts about the ones you deem
  are better not kept in the dark unseen;
  for you’d rather consume and binge
  words about the perpetrators. So cringe
  to think this is how you get off,
  all while telling victims who speak up ENOUGH
  all ready! with the bleach bucket
  to silence those of us causing a ruckus.

  
  With our hatchet-sharp voices, no longer silent
  Echoing on about your compliance.
  With my words I’ll sound the alarm
  About all that continues to cause us such harm.

  September 19, 2025

  cptsd, csa, flashbacks, grief, healing, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual abuse, sexual assault, trauma, victim advocacy, writing

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• Could’ve been somebody

  I could’ve been somebody who didn’t flinch or wince
  at every sound out of place.
  Living life in a dream state,
  known to dissociate, disconnect, and escape
  nightmarish recollections of all that I hate

  in me – what no one wants to me to surface;
  find a prettier purpose,
  quietly close the curtain
  on all that was taken –
  like it’s easy to move on,
  sing a happier song.

  If my body could produce
  a sound, lighter, or induce
  sweet melodies from my lips,
  I swear all of me I would give
  to be cleaner and easy
  to digest than all my queasy

  memories and pleas turned into rhymes.
  Believe me, I try all the time
  to open my mouth
  and let out things that won’t make you frown,
  or sob in a puddle; surprised
  beauty like mine is so deprived

  of days where the sun fully shines,
  where what’s lost is behind –
  no more echoes of my screams,
  no more bleeding from the shards of my broken dreams.
  But it’s because I’m so broken
  you love me now like a token;
  so long as I leave unspoken
  how I came to be
  so jumpy and distrusting.
  Should’ve died from the thrusting
  and thrashing against
  a reality too dense
  to produce anything other than
  the broken beauty I command.

  I could’ve been somebody who doesn’t fawn or freeze
  at reminders of his insatiable greed –
  but I’m not and I’m dreadfully tired
  of being asked to put out the fire
  in my soul, burned to ashes
  from all the masses
  of complicit onlookers, now
  telling me to calm down
  every time I flinch or wince or hold my breath;
  like I’m scared to death –
  because I was and I am
  and I’m simply doing the best I can.

  September 18, 2025

  flashbacks, grief, IFS, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, recovery, sexual assault, trauma, writing

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• To the ones who should also be on trial

  When I can’t figure out what to say
  I try to put pen to paper anyway.
  Because the truth of the matter is that
  my silence only protects the man I used to call dad.

  No, these days we’re too grown to keep quiet
  memorials buried inside me like a riot
  that failed to ever organize and rise
  up out of the tormenting lies;

  the ones he told me and so did my mother.
  Family loyalty above all else and others!
  It’s what keeps the immigrant family afloat;
  we’re taught to never speak up or rock the boat.

  And on some level I get it to this day –
  I’ll never know what it’s like to runaway
  from a terrorist government right into familial obligation
  to make something more of yourself than impoverished stagnation.

  That’s the story of the women who birthed me;
  the one of the man who raped me is also key
  because I’ll never know what it’s like to live under
  my grandfather whose anger boomed like thunder.

  But I do know what it’s like to survive
  violent attacks from the ones tasked at keeping me alive
  and being told to hold dear all the terror.
  Being youngest, made me especially the bearer

  of dark secrets turned pretty by all my compliance.
  You see, my sister chose young the path of defiance,
  but that only made her a perfect target.
  We were fucked, no matter how you sliced it.

  I was too pretty, too docile and put together
  for teachers, doctors, caretakers to bother
  ever wondering if there was truth in my timid confessions.
  They each chose instead to leave the learning of hard lessons

  to the classroom of the violent home I could never escape –
  the place where I learned that there’s no love like rape.
  You see, it’s much easier when you hold all power
  as an adult, hoard it up and completely devour

  innocent brown bodies of forgotten children,
  than step in and risk your neck to protect them.
  That’s what they did to my little brown body
  when they said bruises and fear weren’t inflicted by daddy.

  It’s such a chilling thing to think
  that you could be so close, so just on the brink
  of being saved from the stuff of pure nightmare,
  escaping what most would never dare

  to imagine outliving, outlasting.
  The most dreadful casting,
  my family of origin, darker than I’ll ever bring to light
  because nobody in this room could survive such a fright.

  But I did, and I’m fully enraged
  by the ones who will leave here unfazed
  thinking my story is unlike that of kids today-
  after all, only demons could go so astray!

  But I’m here to call out your denial,
  because the ones who should also be on trial
  are not just the ones who birthed and raised me, their daughter,
  but the ones who to help me just couldn’t be bothered.

  Take it from me, the pedophiles who could do
  such unspeakable acts to my children and yours, too,
  are the friends, family, acquaintances you collectively refuse
  to without question destroy and remove.

  Instead, you place greater value
  on keeping face and keeping dark what is true.
  You remember the needs of the raper
  before you ever believe children who cry danger!

  I cried a lot; I’ll be honest I knew from an early age
  I’d die alone in that family, take our secrets to the grave.
  So, I’m not sure now what’s more shocking –
  that I’m alive or that I’m even up here talking.

  Because the truth is for most of us called survivor,
  we often live on in the shadows of our traitors.
  If we’re lucky enough to live past
  the rape and bloody wounding we learned to outlast

  we learn also that our bodies and words
  are not worth protecting or believing anymore.
  So, we stay silent; sometimes even caring for
  the ones who gave us our unwanted violent lore.

  So, as unbelievable as it is,
  I’m speaking now to tear down the myth
  that terrors you’d rather not confront
  if I may be so blunt
  cause scars for which you are also at fault
  there’s many ways to indirectly perpetrate assault.

  Because what happens when your refuse to say rape,
  when you walk away from this stage in utter dismay
  that a bitch so foul mouthed and enraged
  would dare to so directly put on display

  your apathy, your inability to stand up,
  to call abuse and violence in the name of love
  exactly what it really is: no more
  than the stuff of the rapists the came before

  you, and me, and our grandparents;
  the ones who gave us our legacies of violence,
  the ones we pass on if we’re unwilling to look
  into our own dirty mirrors and ask what took

  us so long to see
  that rapers like my father are no different than you and me
  if we don’t unlearn that having power
  is no excuse for causing those in our care to in fear cower.

  That’s right, if you walk around using intimidation,
  leave your entitlement left unchecked cause of your station,
  yours are the hands that help stow and carry
  a darkness into the future we should bury.

  And if you’re one the few left still sitting here
  refusing accountability, let me make it real clear,
  the violence you let out lives on like an echo
  every time you tell a hurting victim to just let it go.

  Maybe what we should start offering in its stead
  are questions that with curiosity are led,
  so that we learn how to help victims shoulder;
  let the pain of others to us be the molder

  of a better version of our integrity;
  let that be what guides our sense of community,
  so that we stop building buldings that look so lavish.
  Caring more for appearance is so fucking tragic

  when we’re called by creator and nature
  to build futures free of unspeakable torture –
  the kind that lies hidden beneath the facade
  of all you’re primed to praise and applaud.

  You’ve lost your way if you think my plea is irrelevant.
  We’re all guilty of excusing the violent
  ways we put each other down;
  it’s written all over this god forsaken southern town.

  My point in all this going on and on is to call
  you forward with all the gall
  I can muster on my first open mic night
  and ask you simply to do what is right.

  Stop leaving the voiceless alone in their fight;
  bring your own darkness into the light.
  Lean into accountability
  to walk and speak gently,

  especially to those in our care;
  remove violence from all we revere.
  Save retribution and unspeakable acts
  for the fuckers who would rather redact

  the flashbacks of those, who like me, made it out
  despite turned backs and adults in power who doubt
  that a child so tiny and pure
  could be telling the truth of all they endure.

  Don’t be like them, so blind to your own blindness.
  Seek above all else, parenting with kindness.
  Leave bruises and fear for other makers,
  lest like a raper you also be taker

  of what isn’t yours just because you carry the burden
  of feeding and clothing small bodies called children.
  Being mom or dad will never give you the right
  to metaphoric or literally beat them into the desires of your sight.

  And if you’re childless still like I am,
  you’re still called to be as defiant
  and stand up to the terror of a culture that would
  leave tiny victims to clean up their own blood.

  The way you help us stop repeating
  a past filled with emotional and physical beatings
  is vowing to be the one who separates –
  no longer letting violence and love collaborate.

  I’m afraid I’m known for being long-winded –
  character flaw gifted by blows from my kindred.
  But I promise I’m almost done.
  Let me boil it all down to one

  fine point.
  Like oil, let me anoint
  this simple and smart
  query onto your heart…

  Ask yourself…
  In what ways can I soften and slow
  And in this way let real love out of me flow?

  September 16, 2025

  abuse, children, community, csa, faith, family, flashbacks, IFS, life, love, mental-health, parenting, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual assault, survivor, trauma, writing

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• Time to go now

  Hey little body, long lost friend of mine,
  I know why you’ve kept your distance.
  I would, too- in fact, I’d die
  If I was met with so much resistance
  From the world around me.
  The looks from strangers and tv ads
  The one that say you asked for it, that you Seduced him. That one you know as dad.

  Ain’t it funny, how society
  Values innocence and chastity?
  But won’t raise a god damn finger
  To save small children from violent realities.

  Remember when that little girl climbed into the backseat of his car
  Followed by her little brother; she set him on her lap –
  You were far to scared to tell them that in this vehicle
  There’s no escape to what they’re running from, and they ought to just turn back.
  I know that you still think of them, and wonder if they could
  Have been the siblings to help you shoulder
  Such an unreasonably intolerable load.
  What a terrible thing to wonder about
  The fate of someone so small.
  I know why you still are afraid for them…
  It’s possible they didn’t make it after all.

  But you did, and now
  You’re rhyming in your sleep
  To think that better care of you
  Those parents of yours could ever keep.
  I know what he told you in that moment
  Still haunts you to this day.
  He said they came to us because he such a good dad
  But he only told you so you would obey.
  And obey you did real well for
  The majority of your years.
  You need to know I’m no longer angry
  For all the flashbacks you still put in my ears.
  Because I now know that your job
  Was to keep us breathing until we finally found
  The will to face the cold hard truth
  Of accepting the scars of terror, pain, and sound
  That he so firmly branded into your body in your youth.

  Sweet girl, I know it’s taken far too long
  For me to finally say this out loud –
  He lied, and yes, he did it all on purpose!
  Just hear me out, let me circle around-
  For a moment, let me take you back there-
  Promise, this is different from the ways you sound the alarm
  Of vibrant unwanted memories
  That tell the solemn story
  Of how we came to be so harmed.

  No, I promise this is different
  And I will endeavor to keep it brief.
  Just go back there to that moment
  With me; I’m trying to give you relief.
  From the burden you took on
  When you saw your big sister and mother in peril
  And learned quickly that your ability to fawn
  Would calm him down when he went feral.

  You need to know now that we’re done –
  I mean me, you and all our other parts –
  Blaming, shaming and even claiming
  That it was all your fucking fault.
  For being so damn cute and intelligent.
  For being so enragingly hard to resist.
  Truth is, had you not stepped up in that moment-
  In this moment, we wouldn’t exist.

  So, just follow me down the dark hallway
  This firmly final and last time,
  Even though you would rather ride away
  On imaginary horseback and upbeat rhymes.
  Let’s go back to the backseat shiver
  You felt when dared to say,
  It’s because they saw a good father
  That they climbed in hoping they could stay.
  He’s a fucking monster, a bully, a rapist!
  And THAT is why you won’t let me see his face
  In the memories you flood me with when pissed
  That I’ve made another mistake.

  Listen, I get it. I know I still scare you,
  Although I hope it’s not like it was
  When the picture became so askew
  And you believed it was because
  “You made me do this”
  “And she did, too”
  The classic argument for all of his
  Pedophilic fantasies.

  So, no I won’t blame you anymore
  Or get mad when the present you decide to hijack.
  I need you to know I know what’s in store
  Now that we are no longer subject to attack.
  So, keep the flashbacks coming – I know what they’re for –
  Until you believe that we’ll never go back.

  You never have to show me his face
  Or paint the picture they demand so clear.
  I need you to know we outran the chase
  And that we made it all the way to here.
  We’re now forty years old-
  Or at least I am
  And now I’m the one in control!
  Not him; Not her; Not them;
  Not the ones who turned their backs;
  Not the ones who said you were lying;
  Like they were all in the same pact
  Of enjoying a little girl dying
  Such a long, slow and nauseating fate.

  I promise, you no longer have to answer
  Those questions I, too, truly hate.
  The ones rehearsed by all the liars
  And the ones who can’t say the word rape.
  Like even just the mention
  Is such an inconvenience.
  “You’re only doing it for attention”
  Is what they say to negate your experience.

  Do you see where I’m going with
  All of this rambling and pleading to you?
  I ask you to hear my emphasis;
  That I believe you knew then what was true.
  And also – because you had to survive it –
  I know why you didn’t hear it all come thru.
  So yes, we’re back in that scary moment –
  I even like how you shaded it blue –
  Now hear me clearly when I tell you
  He knew exactly what his words would do
  To you
  And here’s the clue,

  He never stopped trying to misconstrue
  Not when he told you later in life
  About the other girls he raped, too.

  Yes, you
  Are the one in 9.
  And you are also not
  The ONLY one.

  So, can we stay here in this moment
  One firmly final time?
  Long enough for me to rip his throat out
  And speak the truly final line
  In this sad scene that we have come back to
  More times than anyone will know.
  Hear me, child, believe that together, we outgrew
  All the lies he made you stow.

  So, here it is,
  What I hope you remember
  Is that all of this
  Is a terror made up by a raper-
  And it’s a miracle we still exist.

  So, now I ask you gently,
  May I change the picture in your mind?
  I invite you to run away with me-
  Let’s unravel this tale and unbind
  Our loyalty to silent suffering;
  Of this we’ve had enough for many lifetimes.

  Do you see me standing outside,
  In your mind, that open door?
  I need you to step off the ride
  And trust; out here there’s so much more
  Than meets your swollen, tired eyes.

  It’s time to go now- Don’t look at him
  Eyes on me
  Promise, our future is no longer grim
  So, let’s flee
  This time together
  Because you are my family.

  And safe is where I’ll keep you,
  Don’t look back-
  I got you,
  This is fact
  You are the reason we outgrew
  All
  Of
  It

  Now,
  Let that memory
  Fade to black.

  August 17, 2025

  child sexual abuse, flashbacks, IFS, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, recovery, trauma

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