women (tw)

women

Not makeup related. This is just my story and I felt that some people may relate to it and feel less alone from reading it. Feel free to delete if not allowed.
"women."
My entire life I have heard men sign the word as they hold a cold beer in their hand and light a cigarette with another. Before the age of eight I was asking my mother why is it a bad thing to be a girl? Why do men scream in their faces the way my fathers friends do to their wives and baby mamas.
"Just learn to make 'em happy," she would slur as her dark eyes finally close after days and nights full of intoxicated rambles and mental roller coasters. I look at her bruised arms from both men and needles and my six year old self sighs. You have done so well on that yourself, mother. I have never been hit. I have no idea the pain that is held behind a raging hand; only the cuts of violent words.
When I was eight I heard my mother's screams from a man she had known for a week. His trailer reeked of dog pee and boozes. They stumbled into the back room. She gives me an empty look as she follows him. The syringe poking out of his back pocket and the bottle of Whiskey that he refers to as his, 'medicine.' My little brother and I sat on the sagging couch together sharing questioning gazes of how to respond.
In the beginning, laughter fills the air. They shoot up and turn their empty insides into a lake of stomach acid and alcohol. Her words slowly become less and less clear until she is back to the same state I have seen too many times. I listen to her stumble into him in drunk vulnerability.
"time to pay up," he says. I hear him push her onto the bed and that's when the screaming starts...
I am eight years old and I do not understand the sounds coming from their room, only that I am a child and I must stay here. Something inside me screams to stay on the disgusting couch. I turn the TV up and make sure to direct my little brother's attention towards anything else.
Her pleads cloud the air until there is nothing left but the fog of my mother begging him to please get off.
I'm married.
My kids can hear you.
This was a mistake.
I need to go.
A smack rattles off the walls and my mother cries. Her sobs crack my heart.
"Don't act so innocent," he barked, "I know I'm not the only guy you've f*cked for some dope. You're a whore. Stop being a tease. I'm not done yet." He wraps his massive hand around her throat and laughs as the cheap mascara turns down her cheeks covered in scars due to decades of meth use. 
She's so high or afraid or both she doesn't notice her little girl in the doorway. I peek in and witness the crime ripping apart the woman who brought me into this world. My trembling hands linger on the chipped paint of the door as I fail to turn away from what is happening to my mommy.
Rachel, say something. He's hurting her. Do something. But I cannot lift past the bricks weighing my mouth closed. I silently sob and pray for God to help her. Or to help me help her.
I sit next to my brother and whip his eyes too. He's so hungry, but he isn't acting out. He isn't screaming or fussing. His belly growls over his question is mommy okay, sissy? What is that sound?
I give him a fake promise that everything will be okay topped off with the saddest smile to ever come across a child's face. That smile that I someday would end up giving daily; one that swore everything was fine and there was no need to wonder why I seemed so empty most of the time.
When he leaves the room he walks down the hall with a cocky smile. His malnourished body shines with sweat. All he cares enough to put back on are a pair of boxers. I lunge past him and into his bedroom to check on my mother. She lays on the bed, a tower of empty beer cans laying on her side as they would have been if she had stayed with my father and us. She's out cold. I shake her shoulders frantically and beg for her to wake up so we can go. I look in her bag, searching for a phone. I don't know who I would call, but we need to go. We need to go...
"She's just sleeping," he says, startling me, sending me into stumbling steps away from the one I'm trying to protect.
"Yeah, I bet she is. After all that," I will not look up at him. I will not breathe. My eyes are clear of fear and all that is visible is rage. You are not strong, sir. You can't hurt me too. I scream these thoughts to myself hoping they become true.
He walks closer to me and I fight the visibility of my fear. I give him a blank glance and keep my focus on my mother's body. she's okay. josh is okay. You are okay...
Be a woman.
Choke down your pride and take it.
Be a woman.
Hold your breath while he murders your childhood when he says, "I know you want it to be your turn."
You spend the next ten years trying to forget that visit. You tell your family that you're okay and you were too young for it to hurt the way it would for someone else. You train your brain to forget and bury it so deep that little girl chokes on the dirt of who she was.
Be a woman.
Date losers who don't want anything besides sex because you've never seen what a loving relationship is. Waste your teen years thinking that in order to be worth a man's love you have to strip and pretend that every damn thing he does is fine. Don't talk back when he's screaming at you. Smile and say it was your fault after every time he makes you break down so he doesn't leave.

Be a woman.
Hold onto what you witnessed as a child and use that pain to make sense of being assaulted at 15 and raped at 17. Find a way to forgive their actions and remember if you're angry forever they win. Choke down your pride and take your rapists order at work with a smile. Do not let them see the chills on your arm as their eyes bring back to life the weight of him crushing me and telling me to take it.
Be a woman...
Learn to take those broken pieces and do not let them define who you are. Learn how to smile when the weight is crushing you. Find a way to not let that bed be the only place you spend your time no matter how bad you want the world to go to hell.
Find a way to care again.
About your grades.
About that future you were working so hard for before the quarantine hit and you didn't have so much time to relive what's happened and what you can't change.
Your friends.
Your family.
Yourself.
Find a way to take that pain and turn it into something else.
Be a woman.
I never want another child to feel the way I did. I want that fear to be buried with the little girl who had to die too early. One in every six women are a victim of sexual assault or rape. Only 230 out of every thousand victims of these crimes come forward.
It took me almost ten years to talk to my mother about what happened to her. She told me she's been raped so many times she's used to it. It doesn't hurt her anymore. This broke my heart and I had a need to share this story.
Someday, I hope we change what it means to be a woman. I never want anyone else to think being a girl is a bad thing. I never want the words, "I'm used to it," to ever fall from another victim's voice.
"Women,"
we are strong.
We are kind.
We are intelligent.
We are not victims,
We are survivors.
We are something to be proud of.