The Puppet

Coming to terms with sexual abuse as a young girl

Staring at the dark ceiling

Numb

Dumb to what was happening

The unthinkable

The truly unimaginable

I was nine

One-minute playing tennis, being a kid

The next

I broken into an anxious sweat

I was a marionette

My hands were held

My feet were controlled

My body moved to someone else’s beat

I was deplete

Of all senses

Of all knowledge

My body moved in ways

I could not comprehend

I was way too young to have a boyfriend

This went on

For days, weeks, years

They stole my soul

I fell through a black hole

For years and years

It has taken me forty years to lift my head

To recreate the scene

To think it through

To tell my story

To leave it and them behind

To crawl out from my little girl grave

To try to be brave

I do not know who I am

I lost lots of time

Spinning in my head

Wishing I was dead

I am ready to go out

To live and be a person

To try and be a better version of the little girl

Who lived in fear

To learn to live

To want to be here

To be sincere

To shed the veneer

To be my own puppeteer