Staring Down My Pit

January has been a very hard and scary month for me.

I have remembered and known many parts of my past, that I had closed away from myself. Parts that I can no longer shut away.

I make the choice to face down the cruelty and hate that was forced into me. I face through sickness, I face through many wanting to shut up and I choose to know what I am scared of.

How can I not be scared when I stare into the hate – cold hate, hate from centuries of abusing prostituted women and girls, hate that was never personal.

How can I not be scared as I know in my guts, in my heart, in my mind – I was there to be tortured.

Not tortured as a human – but placed into something that is given the name prostitute, whore, escort, companion – a thing that men had formed as soon as they could exchange goods to rape without consequences.

How can I not be scared knowing my rapes, my tortures, my bashings, my listening to language that destroy my soul all meant nothing. It means nothing when there is no concept of justice.

It means nothing when rapists, batterers and torturers can called it business, just a job. It means nothings each times goods or money is exchange, all violence disappears.

Leaving just my empty body unable to compute what had happened.

Yes, I should be scared. I should know I lived inside terror so long and such a regular basis, that my mind had to say it is of no importance.

I could not be scared as a prostitute, so now it clamps down on my heart.

This is where my courage rises up.

To stare into terror and not flinch – that is true courage.

That is my way forward.

Please hold me.