Unrecognized Hero

"If one woman told the truth about her whole life, the world would split open... if one woman dared." Roseanne Barr

This is the truth. I don't want to tell it, but I have to. I don't want you to know it, but you will.

Something happened when I was very young. I can't even tell you, a total and complete stranger, because it will ruin me forever. But I still know it happened. It haunts me as I struggle to wrap my head around who I am today because of what I survived yesterday. I want to tell you, but I am afraid I cannot. I will never tell anyone. I will never even hear myself say the words. It is too painful. It is too shameful. I have never mentioned it to anyone... ever. It is that big of a secret. A secret so big and so scary that if it earthquakes out me, it will kill me instantly. I cannot tell you, but it is true.

It's happened to others in my family. But I didn't learn about it until much later. Someone was even threatened with a gun because of how bad the rumors were. But she survived. She is still here. I didn't even know this story until just a few years ago: He put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her until she confessed the truth. She was telling the truth. He just didn't believe her. He didn't shoot. Thank God.

Another was threatened with a public court trial. It became such a silent family scandal that it tore our families apart. I haven't even seen some of my cousins in years. One was just recently married. I didn't go to her wedding. I have never met her husband. I am the one who "always wanted to be white" and didn't respect her heritage. They were wrong - I respected it very much, I just never understood why women had be treated so differently. We were stronger than men, I always thought. We are the ones who really put food on the table. We grow entire human beings inside of us and bring them into this world. As far as I was concerned, women deserved to be treated BETTER than men. We gave life and nourished it every day of our lives.

Women are heroes.

Women are used, abused and thrown away everyday.

I look at my naked body and wish it was different. I touch it slowly and softly. I feel my hands smooth over his fingerprints. Jay's fingerprints are branded on my breasts, my stomach, my thighs, my back... My dad's fingerprints are branded on my face, the back of my neck, my arms, my bruised and cut up hands...

I should have come with an owner's manual.

Please fix me.

I know I am different than you. I know I have experienced too much life way too soon. I know you will never understand. I know I even don't want to understand. If I understand, then there are reasons for everything that has happened. If there are reasons, then there are no more questions. But I need the questions because bad things aren't supposed to have answers. They are just supposed to be here and there, answerless, pointless, just random with no explanation except forcing you to be more aware of who you are and who you want to become.

I am just a girl... I am an angry daughter, a doubting sister, a scared girlfriend. I have a small frame, but it is made of iron. I am not white, but all the cocaine in the world could not make me more innocent and pure. I am sarcastic and witty, but honest and dumbfounded. I am brainwashed, yet my worst nightmares are ingrained in my memory. I will walk through hoops of fire to take away another's pain, turmoil and sadness, but I cannot extinguish the fires threatening my own heart and soul. I am loving, affectionate and giving, but I am too hard, cold and paralyzed to fully express it.

I am not trying to find my niche in this world. I am not challenging joy and happiness. I am just sharing one woman's truth. I am just feeling the volcanic eruption of my past overflow into my present with such force that I can't see my future anymore.

So this is my life. I am a silent rape survivor. I am the interference in my dad's drunken rampages. I am the niece of my murdered uncle. I am a drug abuser. I am an easy one-night stand. I am the fucked up one who has the perfect life. I am the social butterfly who is always alone. I am the one with the perfect figure, except I am too broken to stand up straight. I am daring and determined, but challenged and afraid.

My rape has torn apart my insides to a depth I am barely able to see and feel. There are parts of my heart and soul that are so vaporized by what Jay did to me that I have to just let it go because I know it will never be the same. The only solid make-up of my entire alienated being are the holes that float inside my wasted shell.

Does that even make any sense??

Does it even make sense for a person, an alien, to be so strong from her broken past that nothing can tear her down anymore?

Does it make sense that as her tears burn her branded skin, her eyes begin to see a little clearer?

Does it make sense that as regretful, hurt and pained I am of my horrible, freight-train, whipped memories that I am just as grateful and appreciative of them for helping me live a life to its absolute fullest - good and bad?

Nevermind.

I am drunk again.

Another bottle of wine down the hatch.

Anything to make it all pour out of me.

Like a waterfall.

I am, after all, my father's daughter.

Please God,
Please let my nightmares rest tonight.