Soon sixteen and life has not been a dream.

I am told life is not supposed to be hard, yet it is for the little girl.

 

Dear 0-year-old girl, I am sorry you are born into war destined to be peace, what a heavy burden to fall upon a newborn baby.

Dear 1-year-old girl, I am sorry your family’s problems are weighing you down since your first steps.

Dear 2-year-old girl, I am sorry you grow up thinking this is the norm.

Dear 3-year-old girl, I am sorry you clench your jaw as hard as you can to hold in the tears burning behind your eyelids because letting them out or even a whimper of it is not allowed.

Dear 4-year-old girl, I am sorry you must run away to hide. You run anywhere that is not the scene of the crime; another room, another home or just behind a door not wanting to see but forced to always know.

Dear 5-year-old girl, I am sorry about what you have witnessed and that it will not end soon.  

Dear 6-year-old girl, I am sorry you are alone now that your protector is tending to their own wounds leaving you to fend for yourself.

Dear 7-year-old girl, I am sorry you focus so hard on school just to from flee home, not knowing what a large tree of problems you are growing from your innocent seed.

Dear 8-year-old girl, I am sorry your stomach is constantly aching. The stress around you attacking your body from the inside out.

Dear 9-year-old girl, I am sorry you are the rope in this tug of war not having the choice to pick a side but being teared apart yet feeling guilty when you could not stop it.  

Dear 10-year-old girl, I am sorry you are perfecting the mask; making others believe you are fine while the truth is safely hidden away.                      

Dear 11-year-old girl, I am sorry you are walking on glass broken minutes ago by one of your own.

Dear 12-year-old girl, I am sorry you feel need to even out the scale by perfection getting water above your head as there is no room left to breath; to be unwell.                     

Dear 13-year-old girl, I am sorry you have made use of your self-defense classes.

Dear 14-year-old girl, I am sorry no one noticed there was a mask. Leaving it to the last drop to break the cup. The breaking cup making your family fall like a Jenga tower.

Dear 15-year-old girl, I am sorry you feel it all so much just wanting some quiet in the tornado you call a head. Just know there is no going back from trying to silence it.

 

I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry. 

I am sorry is all I can say.

I am sorry is all I can say when there is a little girl having the to bear the world on her not even fully developed shoulders.

I am sorry is all I can say when there is a little girl forced to put up a mask of maturity as the childish innocence drips from her small body.

I am sorry is all I can say when there is a little girl crawling into the sofa corner, clutching stuffed animals as hard as she can. Trying to protect them as she wants to be protected.

I am sorry is all I can say when there is a little girl trying to have the rare unicorn that is a nice family dinner.  

I am sorry is all I can say when there is a little girl deserving of a life not coated but made in sugar, cursed to have it made in coal.

 

Soon sixteen and life has not been a dream.

I am told life is not supposed to be hard, yet it is for the little girl.

I say “I am sorry” even though it is not my fault, neither is it the little girl’s.

Yet I do say “I am sorry” and it is all I can say as I wonder “Was the little girl ever a little girl?”