Sing her song of life; she’s been dead so long. Closed in silence so long, she doesn’t know the sound of her own voice, her infinite beauty. She’s half-notes scatted without rhythm. No tune. Sing her sighs. Sing the song of her possibilities. Sing a righteous gospel, let her be horn. Let her be horn & handled warmly & this is for colored girls who have considered suicide but moved to the ends of their own rainbows.

they told me I wasn’t happy about anything anymore. I was in denial, I told him I was happy but just dealing with a lot. I was in denial about what I was really feeling

I’m tired. I’m just tired, I’m not happy. I don’t think I've been happy since I was in elementary school. I can’t even say I was happy then either. I was 19 and young and then I had pushed what happened to me in a place I thought it could never come out of. I was wrong, so wrong about that.

I've had a lot of happy moments but they don’t really last long. I have a lot of happy memories that I hold on to for dear life because it’s the only hope that I have left. Hoping that one day I’ll be happy again and feel ok.

I didn’t think I was this fucked up in the head. I never thought I was. I’d always thought I was a strong person because I’m still breathing and function in a healthy life now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know that I feel sad all the time. I’m happy when I’m with my daughter and best friend but then it’s like the sadness just creeps in and I get sad all over again. I feel depressed but I don’t know what’s wrong.

The other night I was thinking. I was thinking about how much I’m hurting right now but I’m scared of letting it out because I’m really not in a good place to break down. I have a lot going on right now that I’m trying to deal with.  I don’t know who will be there for me if I break down. I don’t know who I can really lean on if I fall apart. I don’t want to fall apart because I have to be strong for my daughter. If I fall apart I don’t know how long it will take me to put the pieces back together again. I’m scared that I’ll go back to cutting and not eating just to control the pain. The thought of killing myself even entered my head. I thought about if it would be better to take a bottle of pills and chase it with the strongest bottle of alcohol I can get my hands on. But I didn’t, I don’t really want to. I just want the pain to stop. I don’t know why I didn’t but the only person I thought of was my daughter. I’m trying to do everything in my power so she doesn’t turn into a fucked up person like her mother.

I didn’t do anything to make someone else rape me. There was nothing I did or had on or drank or said to give anyone the right to rape me. That’s a face. But still I feel like it’s my fault, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that out of my head but I’m working on it.

Some days I feel like dying. I still remember after my daughter was born, she was sleeping and I was so tired after staying up all night with her I started having night terrors again. I felt like a horrible mom and all I kept thinking of was how much pain I was in. how I was hurting so bad. I wanted to open up the bedroom window and jump out; I didn’t want to live anymore. I wanted to die, the pain was too much for me to handle and I couldn’t keep dealing with it. It was like no matter what I did or what I tried the pain never went away for long. It just kept coming back and getting worse.

I wanted to call 911 and tell them I need someone to help me. I need help dealing with life. I need help dealing with the feelings that I’m having. I need help with not feeling so sad all the time. I need help with not feeling so sad all the time. I need help not trying to kill myself. I didn’t call…….I didn’t want anyone to know how I really felt. Everyone thinks I’m the strongest person in the world and I’m not. I smile every day and pretend like I’m ok and I’m not ok at all. I feel so hurt and broken and down. I just don’t know what to do anymore…..

Because it turns out the nature of rape has changed. We can now meet them in circles we frequent for companionship. We see them at the coffeehouse with someone else we know. We could even have them over for dinner and get raped in our own houses by invitation, a friend.

I don’t want to be touched by another man again. It’s just something about men that just turn me off completely. I don’t like them. I don’t really care too much for women either. But when it comes to men it’s like I’m not attracted to them at all. There’s nothing really about them that I find appealing. I don’t want any of their hands on me and just thinking about it really turns my stomach in the worst way.

It’s like every time I look at a man the first thing that pops into my head is, is he going to hurt me? How many women has he raped? How many has he had sex with while they were drink? Would I ever trust you to be around my daughter? It’s like a million questions running through my head at the same time.

I don’t want to date; I don’t really feel like talking to anyone. I’m not in the position right now to start over. I know that if I do decide to start talking or dating again eventually I will have to tell them about my past because of the panic attacks and flashbacks and the issues with sex. It’s like healing a wound and having to open it back up every time you want to get close to someone. I mean really how many times you can expect of that person to keep getting hurt over and over again. I’m tired of people not wanting to talk to me because of what happened to me. I’m tired of getting blamed for what someone else did to me.

I don’t want to have sex again. I don’t like it and it’s disgusting to me now. I felt like this after I was raped too. Like just the whole act of isn’t appealing to me because always in the back of my head is Frank on top of me raping me and I still can’t get that thought out. Being raped is what I think about when the word sex comes into my head. I think I might have pushed myself to like it just to be normal. And it’s not even the fact that I didn’t like it, it’s just that I haven’t completely separated sex from being raped so.........

I don’t want to have sex again but I want to beheld and feel like I’m loved. I deserved to be loved and be held. It feels really nice and it would make me feel happy and wanted. It’s like every man wants sex and I just don’t want it at all. So I’m deciding to stay away because I don’t think it’s fair to me or the other person to be in a relationship with someone if you can’t be intimate with them. After I’m healed I just want to be healed without worrying about having sex. I just don’t want to do it.

 Like I want to be alone but I don’t want to live my life alone, or die alone. That’s been my fear since I was in elementary school. When Justin molested me I started having nightmares. I remember it because in middle school I had a crush on my neighbor but he didn’t like me but I loved him and in the nightmare someone was trying to kill him and I saved him and he still wanted nothing to do with me. I had my own house a really big house with no kids and I was just living there with cats and that’s how I died, alone. It’s my biggest fear is going through this world alone.

 I’m just so worried about hurting other people again that I put myself second and I need to stop doing that. It’s just that when I do actually start to lean on people when I need help they walk away and I’m alone…. again…