Open letter to my Abuser

I was four years old

Wearing a overalls and pigtails

Wide eyed and trusting

What did you see when you looked at me?

Did you somehow see a younger version of my mother?

Did my big girl undies look more like lingerie?

Did you ever feel guilty?

Did you think you wouldn’t get caught?

I am 22 now

And I learned monsters don’t live under the bed or in the closet

I learned they don’t have sharp teeth or claws

But that Doesn’t make me feel safer at night

I once asked you if you regretted it

And you pretended not to know what I was talking about

told every one and the courts I lied

I did not lie

And you served barley any jail time

I was always taught the truth would set you free

 but im still serving mine

gave my body to strangers

took drugs and drank

just to get the feel of your hands off my body

this body has never felt like it belongs to me

feels like it belongs to a lover become stranger

So familiar

yet so foreign

I have become a ghost

of that trusting little girl

afraid of closed doors

and keeping secrets

afraid of older men with warm smiles

did you know

18 years later

i can still picture the room clear as day

I still know what sat on the counter

and the color of the bed sheets

they were forest green

i remember how blue your jeans were

and the copper of your belt buckle

these memories are so clear yet so distant

like im watching somebody elses life

did you know

how badly you would hurt me?

did you know how badly I would hurt me

just to free the poltergeists you left in my blood?

ive tried painting my skin with 18 shades of foundation

trying to artwork myself into a person your memory couldnt terrorize

and i am terrified

of being alone

because sometimes

sometimes

when im alone

i find myself less of a survivor

more of a victim

i find myself wondering

if the knives in my house would release more ghosts

i find myself wondering

if i am still whole

every now and then

I go to your facebook

and stare at your picture

like visiting a grave

the one where my childhood innocence is buried

I leave flowers because that’s what your suppose to do

And I dig

When I open the coffin

I’m not surprised to find it empty

I wonder if the church knows my skeleton

Is hanging in your closet

I wonder how many more are in there

How many lived ripped apart by your greedy hands

How many girls turned woman before they were ready

How many of them gagged by their own families

Learned silence is a virtue at their mothers knee

At their fathers denial

At there grandmothers dismissal

How many watched as you were greeted like and old friend and were shot glares that felt like bullets to screaming lungs

How many drowned in the blood from their tongue as they were forced to bite it

How many still see you in their nightmares like I do

I’ve come a long way from where I use to be

But I’m still searching for my missing pieces

Rumor has it they are locked in your dresser

Rumor has I’m scattered in your bed room

Rumors always have truth hidden in them 

im waiting for the day I have the courage to stand up

To speak 

to expose you for the monster you are

then maybe 

I won't be afraid of the dark