Scattered Stars

Unspoken words

Warning 🚨🚨🚨
Disturbing content. Please read with caution.
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Unknown

What it means to be a woman.

Big curves, thick thighs, and big breasts, those are the things I thought made a woman.

I was playing in the streets as a young girl and these hungry eyes would chase me along as I jumped rope, as I hopscotched as I ran through the narrow paths of my township home.

At first, I was confused, I didn't understand why those eyes stared after me so hungrily, like a dog frothing at the mouth its eyes feasting on a meal. One day these beady eyes approached me along with their lips, large corrosive hands and in those hands was a wallet, a wallet so thick it seemed to be spilling its greenery.

Those lips whispered sweet nothings to me, giving me infinite promises. I was a child in the eyes of many, including myself but in that very moment I looked around saw my father: pants full of dirt, black dust smeared across his black face from working in the mines, I saw him sway and stumble while his black hand held a beer bottle, his sole companion, his elixir. He never goes a day without it, not one.  

I looked over to my mother her brown eyes wide and full of fear, that is all she was full of. She had a plate in front of her full of nothing but poverty, like the many things in my life they were full to the brim, but their contents served me no purpose besides forcing me onto my knees like a peasant at the mercy of men. She saw him zoom towards her even in his staggering and stumbling locomotion she flinched and cradled her head to protect the memories to protect the realities. He hit her, hurt her and spit on her all the while I laid on my bed a thin sponge mat that could barely insulate my shaking body from the cold cemented floor, I was shaking because of the cold and because I knew what was coming.

It always starts the same.

Screaming, bashing, thrashing, trashing and then repeat I can recite the scene of the abuse with my eyes closed but instead, I turn my back towards them and train my eyes on the glittering tin can I call home, trying to push out the memories and sounds. But even in my stupor, I could hear her scream, I turned to see why then saw a man's hand bundled into a fist, a black fist coming down on my pathetic mother like rumbling rain.

I shut my eyes before the impact but I still heard it.

I looked out the cracked window to see the night sky and saw bright stars that reminded me of my friend. I saw her eyes in the sky they stirred up the memories of when we were young and we would play between the narrow paths of my township. That's how I coped, I used memory to suppress reality.

After those evil lips curled beside my ear and whispered the last of its lies I believed him, because I wanted to because I had no choice but too because with the hell I've lived there had to be heaven out there. He told me he could get me that heaven and all I had to do was open my legs for him. I closed my eyes and I saw myself back home, my mother being beaten as her plate full of poverty tipped over.

I opened my eyes and saw those thick dark lips draw into a smile because before I knew it I had my legs spread. I wailed while a snake entered my once small hallow cave but you see in my mind my cave was still hallowed even though it was no longer clean, no longer pure and no longer small.

My pockets though, my pockets were full.

I was no longer a child, I was a woman who used her big curves, thick thighs, and large breasts to feed her family, I sold my own purity for the price of bread, milk, and clothing.

Even though years have passed and the men have changed new clothes continue to adorn my back but I still feel naked, bare for the world to see.

I hear the whispers of warning mothers give their children, telling them to stay away from me because I will teach them to be whores all the while they shrivel up and die of hunger.