When I look at these old pictures of this charming little girl, before she became burdened with memories of torment and lashes of regret, I see a poor girl who had no clue what turn her life would take. And when I see her smile with her big bottom lip and bright brown eyes, I wish with all my heart that I could have protected her, and save her from the deep vibrations that are ever-present in her stomach and the thoughts that roam the back of her mind from her past. How could she have ever survived the slaughter of her trust, and still managed to smile? How can she laugh like delicate bells when she has yet to experience so much misery? She smiled with so much love and beautiful innocence, how could anyone live to take advantage of her?
I never knew, and she never saw it coming. She was tainted, blackened by mistrust. Her radiant life was darkened by the smell of musk on his skin and the pain he caused that ruptured her body. She knew, she knew she should have said no, but she felt so alone, she didn't care anymore. She couldn't handle being excluded, she didn't know how. Every moment of her life was guided by someone who loved her, but then everyone started leaving, and she began to feel what it was like to be abandoned. How is a child supposed to feel when her father wouldn't talk to her and her mother and step-dad would argue every night because alcohol was embedded in their minds? How was she supposed to handle her sister moving out and her brother was never home? Her best friend had left her by herself, wrought by her own distress. Her once-called love abandoned her in cold blood. She couldn't feel that death was always a hand breadth away, that falling could break your bones and insults could poison your mind. She felt so numb, she believed she was indestructible..
And then he came, and he filled in her loneliness. He stayed for weeks, quietly gaining her easy trust, slowly deceiving her into opening her closed thoughts, coloring in her blackened mind with the tarnished colors he chose from his secret storage of lies. But she was so naive, she didn't seem to notice yet how he would never look her in the eye, how he could only ever talk about her beauty, and how he managed to play her into his schemes. That little girl became so lost in time, she let go of what she was taught all her life, "If anyone touches you, you tell someone. You tell that person, no." But she didn't say no. Instead, it was too late. She was corrupted, and he taught her to say yes. He told her that he loved her, that he cared about her. He felt like the only one who was there, but in the end, he left just like everyone else, not to return until 2 years later when the young girl had long since realized the truth of his intentions. And it was then that she told him to go away and to never come back, because within those two years, she also learned what it was like to fear for your life, to feel the pressure of AIDS, and the pressure of a child at a child's age. She was barely 14 years old before she felt like throwing up from the fear of being a mother. But where was he when she tumbled into oblivion? The city's name itself, in which he lived, was feared to be spoken,in it was where he corrupted the minds of other young girls just as unfortunate as her to be raked into his traps.
But she overcame her fear, her pregnancy was a trick of the mind, quickly proven untrue when her monthly period arrived. She learned the truth about the condition of her body, that it was still as clean as it was before the traumatizing event, and it was then that the trees gleamed brighter and the grass seemed greener and the sun was warmer. Because she finally felt like she could live again, free from the mistake she made, free from the clutches he had subconsciously left her in. But the affliction still stays, the memories wash through her mind like a windstorm when the kids make jokes about HIV and STDs. She smiles her radiant smile, but underneath, her heart pounds harder, and fear still envelopes her, as if she will never be completely free from the paroxysm he bestowed upon her young body.
How she still smiles so brightly, and how she still lays hope in the kids who's parents abandoned them as well, how she comforts those around her because she can feel their pain as if it were pressing against her skin, she can't explain. That dedication to remove the despondency of others became perpetual. The drive to extinguish the hurt emotions was like a raging fire within her spirit that killed her to see those she loved cry. So she became the girl who learned how to overcome adversities, and who tried bringing a smile to those kids, and sometimes she would fail, but she would never give up. She pressed forward and stuck true to the promises she made to herself. That young girl who was so radiant and innocent, that young girl who was pressured without even knowing it, that young girl who tasted the dark side of life and climbed her way back out, was me.