Debased ...

He didn’t just take my innocence, he took my hope.

When I was 8, he said to me "Girl, look how fast you're filling out", as he played with my hair, "In a couple of years you're gon be all grown child".

When I was 10, he said to me, "Everybody gives Uncle Tony a kiss before going to bed in this house", as he stroked my cheek. My mother's house.

When I was 12, on a drunken night, he broke down my room door and covered my screaming lips and held down my fighting legs and thrust himself inside me.
When I was 12, he started killing my soul. Little girls like me never grow up, they just die.

The kind of hurt that he made me feel, it doesn’t go away.

My mother walked into the room and all she saw was the mess in the room, not the whimpering child curled up in a ball in the corner , and all she said to me, as she looked at the bloody sheets around my waist was "Child, You only got your period."

And I shook my head, "He hurt me ma, he pushed, and he held me down", I said with soundless tears streaming down my face.

My mother said to me, "Hush your mouth child, you only got your period"

….and now, its been 25 years, I can hear my daughter screaming in the room next to mine, her father had a bad day. When she comes to me crying, I'll hold her, wash her up, and tell her soothingly, "Hush little baby, Daddy loves you…you only got your period".