Rise Up
Let me walk you down a path so frowned upon to our delicate minds, so misleading and daunting to our precious ears, so desensitized in the hearts of our bodies that run with blood straight through our veins that pierces into the deepest darkest crevice of our soul, that can't keep up with what what is being put down every second of this day, week, month, year.
Stop.
Stop trying to find a way around it, stop trying to find a way to deny it, because the time is now, now is the time to listen, to get, to let it sink in so deep that it marks your inner most being permanently with wax so harsh that every time you try to pick at it you only receive irritation, fire, and drive.
6
So young so beautiful so full of life, still believing that Santa Clause is real, that your mom is not the tooth fairy, that your family is your home and nothing can nor will ever happen to you by the hands of the ones who raised you, who nurtured you, who clothed and who bathed you. Yes. That afternoon. That afternoon. You told me you were going to teach me how to be a girl, you were going to teach me what it feels like to really feel "happiness".
9
You walk through the halls different, awake but not really. Your friends are always talking about how heroic their daddy's are and how they are his princess, how he takes them out for walks and onto to his great big plane. But the only thing that comes to mind when you hear the works plane is his. His white, strong and powerful plane that wakes you up every night and causes you to tense up only to be shhhed into the darkness of the night. With tears in your eyes you ask him to stop, to not do this tonight. To leave you alone and go back to sleep and make mommy feel "happy", only to feel a stronger grip on your arm and hands now in your mouth to conceal the defiance. Days, weeks, months, years. "This is child abuse!", you scream only to be quieted by the excruciating force of his body slamming against yours. You try to hold in your screams, your terror, your tears, your silence. "Say something, say something!", your mind says when you are alone with your mother or at school with your teacher, but you don't because he has threatened to make your sister feel "happy", his only daughter, blood from his blood. No. You can't.
11
It was the night of your sisters 7th birthday, at exactly 10:50pm when the pain finally stopped, but an entirely new one arose. That look, that look of terror, deception, utter shock in the eyes of the woman who gave birth to you. Why?!, she screamed as tears rolled down her eyes faster than a truck falls off a cold and icy cliff in the middle of December. Why!? Why her?! Why now?! Why ever?! The days that followed saw only the faces of detectives, officers, social workers, judges, and doctors, all assuring you the same damn thing, "It wasn't your fault." 40 years for raping a minor, the social worker told your mom while asking for forgiveness because they couldn't get him in for more.
14
High school hits her harder than the fall of the economy in 2008. Filth, trash, less than dirt is how you describe yourself. Never wanting to love or be touched by anyone ever again. Sadness and guilt hang over your head like the last breath of air Bubba took before he went on to shrimp heaven. His heaven, but where is yours? You found it that summer before freshman year in the living room of your uncle's best friend. Peace, redemption, forgiveness, love, acceptance, value, LIFE was restored into your dead and limp body by the one and true light of this universe. You rise.
17
Bright, healed, confident, wise, mature beyond any worldly understanding. Hope is restored into your life because you decided to rise up and leave it behind and be consumed by the one who created you, and frankly sweetie, that was the best decision you have ever made in your life. When? When will it be enough that we put a stop to this monster that destroys more than just body parts. Lives, hearts, families, dreams, EVERYTHING is what is destroys when they lay hands upon the innocent bodies of this world. See the problem is that we listen, but we don't hear. We look, but we don't see. We know, but we don't tell. We simply blame with the ignorance this world wants to speak with. Like the girl up above, there was no escape. Six years of her life that she will never get back, six years of her so called "childhood" that will forever be flooded with dark memories of horrific nights seeing those black eyes stare into her soul, but no. She did and will not let that define her. Rise up, she hears loud and clear and rise up is what she will do for the rest of her life, never silencing the pain nor the truth of this conspicuous matter.
Rise Up. Rise Up.
Lucero Denisse Oceguera is the co-manager of social media for The Rise Up Campaign ©
