UNSAFE GIRL

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WHEN PEOPLE LOOK AT ME WHAT THEY SEE IS FIERCE.

BUT WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT ME IS THAT I AM A VICTIM OF VIOLENCE. 

Physical, mental, emotional, sexual, childhood, marital, familial, racial and police violence.  

The violence that happened in my childhood would follow me into every area of my adulthood.

It would haunt me in my home, in my schooling, in my work.

In my men, in my marriages and in my children.

Violence was in my money.  Violence was in my mothering.  Violence was in my veins, my blood and in my love. 

It seemed to hunt for me.

VIOLENCE WAS IN MY BEDROOM and in my backyard. 

IN MY CLASSROOM, ON MYPLAYGROUND, at the bus stop every damn day.

It was IN THE PARKING LOT, IN MY WORKPLACE, ON MY  FUCKING COLLEGE CAMPUS AND AT THE BEACH, Ya’ll. The police attacked me and my friends while were at the beach, ya’ll.

THERE SEEMED TO BE NOWHERE I WAS SAFE.  I WAS AN UNSAFE GIRL.

As a little girl, my father was my terrorist. 

I learned how to die, each night in my bed, as my father violated me. 

My death slipped me in and out of a coma, like a possum uses death as protection.   

But my predator was not repelled.  My predator was willing to devour me dead. 

My body had no say.  My voice made no noise.  Silence felt like screaming.

My father’s words were not warnings.  They were threats.    

Threats of blame. 

“You will break your mother’s heart if you tell her.  It will be all your fault.”

“It will be your fault if your mother and baby brother have no food and no home, because I will be gone.”  “Do you want that?”

“You will destroy the family if you tell anyone.”   “Everyone will hate you.”

Threats of shame.

“No one will believe a little girl like you.” “No one will want trash like you.” “No one will love you.” “Everyone will hate you.”

Threats of humiliation.

“Everyone will find out how bad you are.”

“Everyone will hate you.”

“Everyone will leave you and you will be all alone.”

“No one will miss you if you are gone.”

“Everyone will hate you.”

I knew what he meant.  I was terrified.  I was completely and wholly terrorized.  

I wished for death.  His or mine.  Or both.  I didn’t care. 

I was one act away from dying.  Or murder-ing.  Killing. 

The only threat that kept me from shooting his brains out and then swallowing a bullet myself, was the fear for my mother and my baby brother, suffering because I had murdered the man who paid the bills.

And then committed my own suicide, which meant that my mother would know that I was, indeed a very bad girl and had to go to hell. 

That is the threat, the only thing, that kept me from being a cold-blooded killer.

An unsafe girl is a scary girl.

So, I learned to terrorize myself.

To turn on me.

To be the dictator of my own death.

To be the whip and the lash.

To coerce myself into submission.  To intimidate myself into silence. 

To threaten myself into surrendering my sanity, my safety, my security and my desires to be treated with dignity. 

To deliberately place myself in harm’s way.

To sacrifice my innocence and my purity and my sanctity

and annihilate my own human rights

And fall in my place

In the line of cruelty, and bow to obscurity and stand down to my master. 

I wrote this, today, September 11, 2024, on the memorial day known as 9-11. 

I don’t in any way wish to compete against the acknowledgement of the terrorism that happened against my nation on that horrific day in 2001.  Nor do I wish to diminish the tyranny of the terrorism that is in all nations, overtly warring or not. 

But I also wish to shine light on the epidemic of terrorism, that is being reigned over children in their own homes, to the persons in the wide open of workplaces and public spaces, and the people within plain sight in classrooms and playgrounds and in neighbors’ backyards. 

National terrorism is no worse a threat than the terrorism that has happened to millions of children, adult children and grown ups who suffered at the hands of the people who were supposed to protect them.  Who are supposed to cherish them. Who are supposed to love them.

And defend them. 

This childhood terrorism is more destructive than burning buildings or burning flags.  Child abuse is the worst homeland security breach in the world.

There is no monument to visit to purge the grief and the loss endured from the attacks in your own home, or school, or job, or college, or street or park, or lot.   

There is no place to line up teddy bears and bouquets of roses and posters saying “I love you”, when your terrorist attacker is your own blood, kin, teacher, coach, brother, babysitter, professor, priest, employer, teammate, best mate, soul mate.

A survivor of child abuse grows into a grown up.  We become adults that have a visceral and cellular and muscular and emotional relationship with violence that doesn’t just grow away as we grow up.

Some of us remain broken.  Some of us end up breaking.  Some of us find blessings.  Some of us learn how to bless.

Because of my very close and personal relationship with violence, I have made it my mission to end its power over me and its power over all others who have been victimized

by violence and terror. 

So on this day, the day to never forget the terror of terrorism, I take a personal pause to send a prayer, and shed a little light on the terrorism that happens in the lives of children, and young people and old people – all vulnerable people everywhere,  who have an experience with violence, in all its “despicable disguises” (the words of Mother Teresa) and I send

protection over you.