When I grow up, I want to be a famous writer. I want to write about the abuse that some children have to survive. I want the world to feel what these children feel. I want their stomachs to knot up, and I want the world to know their pain.
When I grew up living with abuse, it was taboo to stand up and say, “please someone make this end.” Being beaten down, by those who should have loved me the most—the bloody nose, the black eye, the bruises head to toe. Oh how the teachers most have known. The agony and despair, how I wanted to disappear—the welts that bled for weeks on end, the tears that choked back so I wouldn’t be smacked again.
The way I had to try for an “A” or my life would just waste away. The suicide attempts, the crimes, just so someone would come and take me away. I had to make haste, leave, and run from hells fiery gate. The searching for a place to hide, one they might not find me in this time. They taught me to hate, to never trust, and not to make a fuss—praying for the lord to knock on the door. Knowing I was too late, this is my fate, he wouldn’t come he hadn’t before. Could I have been to dirty and he didn’t want to look at me anymore?
As neighbors closed their windows, so my howls would not get in, the rags my brother used to clean me as he whispered “be silent or you will get it again”—these memories so unclean, tattered, and torn. They are so worn, for I can not make them dissipate. They creep into play each and every day, they stand in my way. I reach out to find a cruel world, telling children to sit in their silent pain. They are told not to complain.
Oh, I want you to know their pain. They cry out at night, and you sit while you hear the fight. You do nothing to end their plight. How you miss out on helping in the fight. How a tiny hand that thrusts into yours, could cease to exist anymore. How one misplaced blow could close their door …
PREVIOUS PAGE
