Crying Out On Behalf Of Everyone Who Ever Felt They Couldn’t Say ‘No’

Somedays I just feel like the haunted empty shell of a little girl that once was.

I was indecisive, confused, naive. I could not bring myself to utter a word, to utter a sound, or question, for I had no idea how to. I did not have the power to speak up for myself; emotions and confusion welling up inside of me. What was going on? Did I like it? Should I let it continue? I must have been the one to have provoked it. If I didn’t stop him, did that mean I wanted it to happen? He’s older than me, so he knows better, and besides I can’t say no to him. He’s my brother, he is supposed to love me. He’s my brother, he is supposed to protect me. He’s my brother, he loves me.

He’s my brother.

Somedays, I feel like the haunted empty shell of a little girl that once was.

Somedays, I feel like her voice was muted, her screams muffled, her tears dried before they could even come out. I see her bright brown eyes watching her innocence shatter into thousands of pieces, colors and radiance dulling with harsh and bitter understanding of truth, the curtain ripped in two only to reveal pain and brokenness behind it.

Somedays, it feels like not a second has passed, and like I’m right there in the moment, being haunted by a nightmare that has been buried for over a decade, suffocating in the reality of stolen hidden and guilty moments. Moments that left me red in the face with the frustration and confusion of not being able to tell you you were wrong.

Somedays, I feel like the haunted empty shell of a little girl that once was.
You stole her from me.

But I refuse to allow you to still steal her thirteen years later. I refuse to let your manipulation still grip me thirteen years later. Today I will be the voice that could not speak. I will shout and I will scream to the world that the scars that ran so deep across my innocent heart, while almost healed, still have let their marks to remind me of my strength. I will cry out on behalf of all of the little girls, the little boys, men, and women alike who felt that they could not find an inner voice to say no.

And those days, when I begin to feel that shell creep over me, I will resurrect that beautiful little brown-eyed girl and celebrate her, for she was never, and will never be destroyed. Her smile lives on as mine does, and her laughter rings out to the ends of the earth as a message that the two of us have overcome.