A fourteen-year-old girl cries herself to sleep every night because all day long every day she has to hear how ugly she is; how worthless. It doesn't take long for her to believe it's true. And the more she tries to change for them, to be good enough for them, the more they taunt her.
She doesn't have the guts to end it. She's too weak. Too scared.
A nineteen-year-old girl just wants to forget him, but can't. She can't eat, she can't sleep. She's losing herself. So she finds a new form of pain. A pain that will let her cry over something other than him.
But she's still too scared. So she lets someone else do it; lets someone else etch words deep into her flesh.
A twenty-one-year-old girl betrays her friend to lessen the abuse, to get on the good side of the abuser. It doesn't work. The abuse continues and worsens and when the girl goes away for just two weeks, leaving her friend alone and unprotected, she doesn't know. She doesn't know that the abuser has plans. Or maybe they weren't plans. Maybe he only saw the opportunity when it came. But when the girl came back, the friend was gone--raped, then sent away.
And that girl blames herself everyday. But she's still too scared.
A twenty-three-year-old girl loses her first child and doesn't even know yet she'll lose another. What rips through her heart at that moment is worse than anything she's ever felt. She doesn't know if she can go on breathing. The weight crushes from the inside out.
Pain burns like the smelter's fire.
And everyone feels it. It isn't a legacy that belongs to only a few people. It belongs to all of us.
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Victoria talked me into posting this today because I've been sinking into depression lately. Yes, me. The girl with all the smilies and exclamation marks suffers from depression. It's something I like to hide (hence the overabundance of smilies). But after she talked to me, I realized that what I was starting to hate most about myself when I was depressed was how I hid all the time.
I am often happy, but sometimes I'm not. Yes, there's a time when those smilies are real (like now, :) ), but it's okay when I just can't find the strength to put them on the screen.
So, what's your pain? I know I'm not alone.
Oh, and thank you, Victoria, for calling me to make sure I posted this today! :) :P
