Why I hate the word beautiful.
When I was about 5 or 6 years old I started being molested by a family member. It’s usually a subject I can talk about, but I’ve never really been able to write openly about it. So I’ll give it a shot. My first memory is of being at a relative’s with all of my cousins; we would laugh and play all day. But at night when it was time to lay down, things became very uncomfortable. I realize now how powerful the mind is because there are things that my mind will not allow me to remember. And then there are things that no matter how hard I try to forget I can’t. “You are so beautiful” he said and asked me to follow him into a separate room. I can’t forget the way he smelled or the pain that followed. I also remember how I would close my eyes and dream of beautiful things. How I was a princess, a pirate, a warrior. All things that made me strong and powerful. And when he was done, he pushed me away and told me to go lay down. In the morning when it was my turn to take a shower, I just stood in the hot water trying to scrub his smell away. I’m not sure how often it would happen after that but I know there were several incidents between the first and the last time. I remember saying that my mom was going to be mad because I my panties were dirty one night and how he told me I would be fine, how my mom knew all about our special times and she said it was ok. So when I went home and my mom said nothing about my filthy panties, I believed him. After a while it became routine. I knew by the way he looked at me and what he would whisper to me at the table what would happen when the lights went out. I tried so hard to fight sleep and stay awake, even talk to my older cousins thinking that eventually he would get tired and just fall asleep first. That very rarely happened. As time went on I remember saying to him what they told us in school, that he is not suppose to touch me like that. He said that it was “only for people who didn’t have permission” and if I told, my parents would be mad at me because I was going to make everybody else jealous of how special I was. He also said that my other cousins were going to start getting mad because I was prettier and how he was teaching me to be a woman early. That the others wanted to know but he chose me. And then I started to notice how different my other family members behaved towards me. I was singled out not just by him but by the others and labeled a “favorite”. He would buy me extra candies and let me choose shows on TV to watch which lead to me being ignored and isolated. I finally got enough courage to say no to him when I was about 9 or 10. I remember yelling “I’m going to tell my daddy on you!” and he laughed. Then he grabbed me by my hair and threw me down and I do not remember the rest. What I do remember is even after he stopped it seemed as though I was marked. I became a target that other family, male and female “used” in situations that I am still not fully comfortable discussing. Around the age of twelve I met this boy who was my neighbor’s brother. I had a big crush on him and he seemed to like me to and so when he said to me “I think you are so beautiful” there was an immediate raise in my pulse. I was so infatuated with the notion that he thought that I was special. It took about 6 months before he started to get angry about everything. If I was talking to another boy, if my friends were visiting, if I had on shorts. Attitude became arguments and before long he slapped me. He said I disrespected him by saying hello to the maintenance man. From then on things became more complicated. He would follow me places and pop up around my friends. He would yell about my clothes and call me a “bitch” or a “hoe”. I never understood what an abusive relationship was. My mom had a boyfriend that would hit her, but he would buy her flowers and candies and she would smile and I thought to myself, “that must be love”. So when it happened to me at 12 I couldn’t believe that after all I had experienced I had found someone who really loved me. Our relationship changed when he decided it was time for us to take things to the next level. For me all I knew of intimacy was pain and that was not something that I was eager to repeat. So I said no and he went into a rage. He grabbed me and choked me and threw me on the bed and he said “I guess you like things the hard way” I remember thinking “you have to find your place, go to that place, where you’re a princess, be a princess!” just when it was almost too late for me his sister came home. I rolled to the corner of the bed and laid there until he told me to go home. Later that night he said I wasn’t ready to be with him because I wasn’t a woman yet and when I was ready to be a women then to come find him. He’s dead now, I didn’t kill him, but I would like to shake the hand of the woman who did. By the time I was 16 years old I was so damaged by
