Then I was a woman

I did not lose my innocence as though it were a toy misplaced 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. That I was more than just a girl.

My innocence was stolen, the way a thief parts a window from the sill and slips inside in the dead of night. Hand over my mouth so there would be no sound carried 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. Too busy to notice the violation of a thin girl with healing bruises from the last beating. Too busy to bothered by haunted eyes that still clung to hope.

If my innocence had been a diamond necklace or a big screen television or even someone’s favorite dress, the police would have been on the case. The culprit hunted down. I was just a girl though, so no homicide detectives came to save me from the man who murdered my joy and left blood stains on clean sheets as the only evidence of it having ever existed at all.

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

The world looks away and whispers behind its hand 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. I was a whore, like all girls who are held to only have value when that thin piece of skin is intact. But I was just a girl.

And then I was a woman.