Yesterday, I was honored to once again interview Luis J. Rodriguez for an upcoming episode on Poetic Resurrection. We spoke for about two hours and we had an amazing conversation about many subjects, including sexual abuse. Being a survivor of this, I had written the poem The Little Girl featured in my first book, Inspire Me: Raw. I’m grateful to my parents for being there for me. It was an experience I thought I had overcome since I could talk about the situation. But, I hadn’t.
It wasn’t until I wrote the poem that I could release the shame and trauma I was holding onto. It served no purpose but to keep me down. Why would I want to hold on to that? The situation is that we sometimes don’t know we’re still holding onto the past. It has a way of showing up as a trigger and that’s when I knew I had to work on letting go. I don’t believe in “forgive and forget”. Yes, I can forgive, but you don’t forget. You learn to forgive them and yourself for holding onto so much pain throughout your life.
I’ve noticed many survivors talk about their experience and I wanted to do the same; I just wrote from the perspective of the child, because the child doesn’t understand.
Listen to the Poetic Resurrection Podcast here or at PR Podcast
The Little Girl from Inspire Me: Raw
The little girl walks to school
Tenements line gray streets
She does well in school
Her five-year-old stature
Shows resistance & strength
Drawings of prismic colors
Joy and glee adorn her face
Hesitant to show teacher
Waiting for praise—teacher questions
She understood but couldn’t answer
Teacher screams at her
Points—to disappear into
The sea of moveable desk
She gazes at her tattered shoes
Her friend speaks English, she does not
Colorless teacher was unkind
To the little girl
Who only speaks Spanish
Tears flow down her face
She hides – the teasing kids
Goes home, keeps to herself
Pretends to be an actress
Living a world that wasn’t her own
Only hearing voices of a different land
Citizens we are, but not considered same
Pretending so young to be okay
Her seven-year-old friend
Said she wanted to play
A store basement, dark and clammy
Her friend gazes on while she screams
“It hurts,”. “Why did you do this?”
A teenage boy
Took friend’s innocence and
Now he’s taken the little girl’s
Her soul and worth
But she doesn’t understand
The store owner saves her,
Atop soaring stairs
Bold voice of disgust
Vibrates the crypt
Boy halts, he runs
She now rests at home
A peeling grey wood porch
Third-floor view—sits on step
Sunless hallway
Looking at the sky so blue
Doesn’t know how she got there
Mind’s a haze of events
Discolored panties, hand washed often
Advertise the status of her little life
The bandages trying to hold
The innocence lost. It’s too late
Mom looks at her—
Turns away and cries.
Did she do something wrong?
Sorry you’re hurting; doesn’t know what to do
I’m sorry mom
Don’t mean to make you cry
Don’t mean to make you cry
Tears never came to me
The little girl who didn’t understand