Nothing Poetic (#emptychair edit)
I was raped when I was 8
Grabbed, threatened, and invaded
So many times
When I should have been safe
There is nothing poetic here
They always call us crazy
They always deny and say we lie
I was called a “stupid victim”
By a “smart” Buddhist thinker
He called my memories, “illusions”
And the flashbacks, “only thoughts”
Symptoms he assigned, “my fault”
Nothing new, this sanity assault
I know he’d be more comfortable
If I locked it in my body vault
But I will not!
My brutal honesty does not mean
That a victim lives inside of me
I simply tell the awful truth
Of what he did, of the abuse
Of how I was once victimized
And he did! And I was a child!
And now I fight, and I am loud
And I heal, and it is all real
And I say proudly, THIS IS ME
I’ll sit in that #emptychair quite openly
Because brutes and blind society
Will not scare or silence me
Ever again
-a.r.
Photograph: 8 year old me
sometimesihatemycat 
I love you.
Thank you. It is not always easy for me to accept love from people, which is my own hang up probably as a result of the above. I am working on it. But, perhaps we are all struggling with that. I am sending my love, and gratitude, to you as well.
Can’t believe I am just now seeing your reply. I let WordPress rest for awhile during the move. We are all working on accepting all of the different ways people love us because I think we expect to be loved the way we love. This is not always the case and it is a struggle to remember they are doing their best. However, it is refreshing when someone steps across the chasm of self-doubt and tries to enter our world and take us for just who we are and not who we can become. I love you for who you are, they say, and respectfully wait to see who you become.
never silence. HUG
Thank you. Hug back to you. Never silence, ever again.