I’m only sixteen but I’ve lived through so much, but haven’t we all.

Who gives a six year old the decision to stay or go?

Moms in jail but whose gonna post bail.

Stay with daddy or go to Louisiana and meet with the rest of my family.

I’m only a kid the decisions too big.

My childhoods been stripped away from me but that was my decision.

Now all that’s left is what ifs and how comes.

Eight years later I’m fourteen in middle school.

Look how far I’ve made it.

But oh how things have changed.

A young girl growing into a beautiful young lady,

They look and stare and I shake and shiver,

They look too close I feel like my skin is being pierced.

You’d think they were strangers but NO it’s the glare from the eyes of a family member.

I remember it so vividly the look, the gun, the floor, the blood.

Oh how terrified was I.

Your told not to speak, don’t scream you’ll wake the kids.

If I tell your mom she’ll believe me and not you.

His words hurt but they were true.

So many nights I cried myself to sleep

Reliving that night over and over

My conscience telling me to scream and yell

Tell someone but I was being drowned in my own fear.

How was I to know?

Two months later a precious life lost.

How was I to know?

I had to speak up.

I’m not a slut or whore.

I was raped by a member of my family

While I lay on the bathroom floor crying and begging for it to be over

Such a precious life gone

Now the only thing left of what would have been my child

 Is what ifs and If Onlys.

So now I use my voice to encourage victims young and old

Speak up before its too late and some other young lady is taken victim.

There is power in words

It’s the silence that kills.