Tag: sexual assault

Questions for my step-father

Why were you drawn to a child so small?

With tiny hands and tiny feet, so innocent and frail.

Did you not see the light of purity in eyes that trusted all?

Did you not hear the silent plea within each fearful wail?

Why did you crave such cruel control,

to wield your power over one who needed love and care?

You stole the safety every child deserves,

and left behind a wound too deep for time alone to repair.

I looked up to you, as children often do,

longed for a father’s gentle hand, a shelter from the storm.

Instead you taught me terror in the dark,

and planted seeds of nightmares that still take their form.

Why do you walk these streets untouched,

while innocence bears scars that never fully heal?

Your shadow lingers in my sister’s final breath,

her gentle light extinguished by the pain you made her feel.

Society turns its eyes away, afraid to face the truth,

preferring comfortable silence to the cost of seeing clear.

But every child with tiny hands and tiny feet

deserves a world that shields them, not one that looks away in fear.

I will not stay silent. I will not let fear win.

Though your face still haunts my quiet nights,

I carry both the wound and the will to fight—

for every child who still believes they’re small enough to break,

and every voice that longs, like mine, to speak.

You took what never should have been taken,

but you cannot take my voice, my truth, or my light.

For every tiny hand and tiny foot still trembling in the dark,

I speak their names into the endless night.