Then I was a woman

I did not lose my innocence as though it were a toy miss placed on the bedroom floor to be kicked under the bed in a haphazard way while I searched for shoes.

My innocence was not taken, for that would suggest that it had been mine to begin with. That I owned it like a piece of my soul.

My innocence was stolen the way a thief breaks a window and slips inside in the dead of night in a quiet house.

No, that’s not true at all.

My innocence was stolen in broad daylight for all the world to see not under the cover of darkness like a shameful thing. the shameful thing it was, though there was no out cry. The world looked the other way.

If my innocence had been a diamond necklace the police would have been on the case. No homicide detectives came to search for the culprit who murdered my joy and left blood stains on clean sheets as the only evidence.

Even a pet cat gets missing posters and rewards offered. But what is the innocence of a girl?

The world looks away and mutters that I would have given it away eventually, so what’s the big deal. My 11 year old breasts and easy laugh Were to blame. I must have wanted it, looked for too long at his face, blushed when he called me pretty. He couldn’t be expected to control himself.

What does it matter anyway? I was just a girl. My innocence was not lost. It was ripped away from a girl.

And then I was a woman.