If wishes were dreams,
I would hand you a sack, stuffed to the seams
Chock full of “Can I Have?” and “Daddy, please a sunbeam?”
Instead, words, download from my bloodstream

I cartwheeled
Stared at trees and ran from bees
I kicked boys in the knee
Fierce and unfettered. Me.

Hand on saddle, a foot in my back
Secret, slow and steady ache
But 4 times I did not break
Still, a good girl I make

Mastering the art of grief
I have learned to weave
All their stories, even them that leave
From the great darkness, I retrieve.

No need to wish
Even kept in a drawer
We mine from this poem, a great lore
An ever opening door…

If it weren’t for Loveline, Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla I might have blamed myself for a long time. Listening to them with my headphones and a tiny FM only radio, I learned that children who come from troubled homes are more likely to be molested, even multiple times.
When I was 10 the neighbor girl down the street from my grandmother taught me how to masturbate with a teddy bear, her kindness in showing me could also be considered molestation. I knew that she had problems, I could smell her issues emanating off of her as clear as that smell a trash bag filled to the brim gives off. The first time we met she introduced me to her Barbie collection, showing me how Barbie and Ken had sex with Barbie's best friend cheering on. Shoulda known she was a bit off at that point I suppose. The next year I joined an acting troupe as part of a local library players group. There I would meet the next molester, a popular black chick from the neighborhood who acted with me. She would harass me, pull up my skirt and threaten to beat me up from time to time. Still when she invited me for a long weekend at her house, I went. Mostly, cause it was that or stay home with my parents. At the time it seemed I would be safer elsewhere but that was not to be the case. Seems this troubled girl had more than just a problem keeping her hands to herself. Late the night I arrived she told me to lay down so she could put lotion on me as I was ashy. I'm pretty much always ashy so I agreed, but when the lights went down and she began to apply lotion under me underwear I got understandably freaked out (in part cause I wasn’t sure if I didn’t like it). I told her no, she said if I didn't let her she would tell her mother I had stolen money from her. In which case I could expect the beating of my life. This was friday night of a long weekend, so I spent the next 3 days in total terror. I called my mother asking to go home, but I couldn't explain to her why with this sadistic bitch listening to every word. So I fought her hands every minute I could, and tried to beat her up even though she was bigger than me. Her mother couldn't understand why her daughter wanted me to spend the night when we were fighting like cats & dogs. I couldn't explain what was going on or why it was so wrong. Years later I heard that she had molested several other kids and was shipped off to a different state to avoid prosecution. Knowing I would never see her again made me feel safe, though I'm sure if I saw her today I would shatter into pieces. Then I would reform those pieces and beat the fuck out of her with my jagged edges. I knew that gay meant you liked people you weren't supposed to. I thought that this might be along the same lines as what she was doing to me, so beginning at that moment I became staunchly anti-gay. I believed that queerness came from molesting, or molesters were queer. It took many years to break the mindset, but I still don't have the words to explain the time I spent thinking I was made wrong. First my father left, my parents who raised me were abusive to the max and then when I did leave the house I could expect to be beat up or molested depending on what seemed to be the whim of the world. Obviously, I became a bit angry. I acted out at school, church and home. Being raised an as I was, I was never a happy camper of a kid. He who raised me was a much mean spirited man, but none of the emotional abuse or physical abuses he put me through hurt me as much as watching the fear in my brother and sisters eyes. Once I reached 11, I started talking trash back at both my mother and stepfather to their face. No respect, I learned curse words especially for them. Teachers and pastors would pull me aside and tell me stop swearing at my stepdad, but I couldn't tell them why so I told them to Fuck off as well. In the beginning of sixth grade I became friends with the group home kids who went to school with me. Fucked up will recognize it's own, and because of my close ties with them I met Earl. Earl was my first official boyfriend, though he was 18 and I was 11. I could tell him anything about my family and he would listen, with one hand on my C cup breast and another wrapped around my waist. We went to the same church so we would sneak out to kiss, which led to the demise of the relationship ultimately. Someone told my mother who told Earl's parents. We all had a meeting where we were forbidden from speaking and seeing each other ever again. I then began to pursue sex and sexual encounters with others as a badge of honor. I couldn't see any other reason for my early not so consensual sex life. So I figured I should try and have my own experiences that weren't clouded by fear. I then had my first consensual sex on a dare, age 12. Angel was the most popular boy in the neighborhood, and he admitted that night was his first too. The ground was wet with summer evening condensation, and for good metaphoric measure I suggested underneath a nearby school's cherry tree. When we were finished, he gave me a stick of gum and I went home. I wiped myself carefully to see if maybe I could keep the stains of him with me forever. Word got around that we had did It, I agreed and he denied. Didn't quite shrug it off, by I figured that was the way it went. I started jr. high and wanted a real boyfriend so bad. I started hanging out with the black kids that my mother's new boyfriend was related to and met Jr. and Jamilo two cousins who were the hottest shit in the 'hood. 'hood being the low income housing in San Luis Obispo, nearby the house I now lived in. Jr. might be considered a sexual predator these days, with his tendency to whip out his dick and smack the nearest and youngest soul. I found this attractive in those days, and we would make out whenever we got the chance. His cousin Jamillo was a year ahead of me while Jr, was 3-4 years into high school and I was in 8th grade. My mother and grandparents got so well on with the Jr/Jamillo's family that we all decided to take a camping trip together in the fall of 1994. I got to invite all of my friends as well, so we ended up with quite the group of kids. My friends at this time were Maureen, Quantrell and Roishaunta Bean. Looking back now, I believe they were looking out for me when they told me not to try and sneak a kiss with Larry D. My cousins came up that weekend from Compton and once they heard about my propensity for making out began to tease and call me the freak of the family. Determined to prove them correct, I set out for Larry's tent. Larry and I had met a few years back, he was part of Jamillo's crew; a distant cousin. He was one of the cutest boys I ever met, and when I saw him playing basketball one day I stopped and watched. Then I proceeded to taunt him until he chased me around a corner and we made out. I really did think that this was how it worked. So we began kissing, and he pulled up my shirt to kiss my breasts and my brother rode his bike around the corner at that very moment. He was more than horrified, and I still to this day regret that he caught that disgustingly ridiculous moment in my life. We stopped making out and I ran home to see if Daniel would tell, he didn't of course. So I saw Larry every day at school after that, but this camping trip was the first time we would be in the same close proximity. I was excited because I thought he really liked me, and had come on this trip because of me. Late the first night I shrugged of my friend's and cousins suggestions and snuck up to "the boy's tent", high up on a hill away from the main camping site. Jamillo had popped in Snoop Dogg's latest, Doggystyle. We kicked it while they drank the beer I had brought with me as a peace offering. Larry and me started flirting which consisted of me pushing him and him pushing back. At the encouragement of the other guys we started going at it, and had sex under a blanket while the rest of the tent listened. It was pleasant, and I liked it more that time than the next which came sooner than expected. I realize now that my actions led to me being in the situation that I was, still I know I did not deserve what came next. Drunk off of beer and horny as hell, Jr. and Jamillo who I had both previously tried to bed decided to have sex with me at the same time. I did not want to, but I didn't scream until they put socks in my mouth to keep me from screaming. That tipped me off that things were about to get Fucked Up. Jamillo forced himself into my mouth and Jr into my vagina; filled out like an envelope Kevin Smith once wrote. And that happened to me. I started scratching them and crying and they stopped. I put my clothes on and ran back down the hill. I had felt more scared at someone holding me down and limiting my mouth than the other actions of invasion. Perhaps I had become used to the feeling or thought that was how it was to feel. I knew that them holding me down was not how sex was supposed to go though. Word spread to my friends and cousins what had happened. My oldest cousins wanted to beat all the boys up, but I insisted I was freaky like that and had wanted it all to happen. Sometimes you feel like it's better to own your experience than being victimized? The next day I took a picture with all the kids, and my mother took us aside after asking what the problem was. She could tell me and some kids weren't getting along or something she said; I believe I told her to shove it or something of the like. I missed my period the next week, which put me through a serious crisis. What if I was pregnant but didn't know who the father was? I told my friends who told the boys's friends, who then called me saying that nothing happened that night, didn't I remember? I was like well, if I'm pregnant what will you say to the DNA motherfucker? Luckily I was not pregnant, but the time I spent thinking about the consequences made me decide not to have sex ever again; until the next time. I kept my word on that actually, not having intercourse again until my freshman year of college. Of course then I was drunk and slept with my friend's stalker, a small mistake on my part. It was freshman year, fall quarter and I was lonely, alone and in pain. I had left the home as I did, and wanted to have someone in my life so badly. Mike wasn't an option it seemed, so I took to drinking to raise my courage to hit on folks. A friend from high school was one of the only ties I kept to SLO in those early years. Chi was Nigerian and a goddess who told people to call her so. She and her roommates kept on getting creepy calls from some strange guy; I was there when he called one night and we got to talking. Then he came over, brought me some vodka and I let him slip his ever so small dick into me in his car (parked at Sunset and Sepulveda). Totally disgusted with myself I had to face that I had a problem and I was acting out the wrong answer over and over again.
"These are haunting things I've remembered all my life. The most horrible thing that has stuck with me all my life is that he was touching me and doing things to me and he said, 'Doesn't that feel good?' I said, 'No, it doesn't.' He said, 'Well, someday you'll know what I'm talking about.'" – Teri Hatcher on surviving sexual abuse

When my mother left my stepfather for real I was 12.
So we moved out of the house, and into a motel. It was late fall and Christmas was soon approaching. Not that it mattered much to me and my brother and sisters. Since I was a child my parents had refused to celebrate Christmas on the grounds that it wasn't a true Christian holiday, but a pagan celebration twisted by the commercialism of the day. So every year me and my brother would watch kids get new bikes, while we got nothing. We also didn't celebrate Halloween, so on the half day where all the kids dressed up, it was us and the Jehovah's Witnesses left to the side. Our first Christmas without Him was magical. We were living in a motel downtown and we all went to sleep that night cold and upset, knowing there wouldn't be a tree, gifts or anything. Like usual. But this time we were homeless too. But that morning we woke up and there WAS a tree, and presents too! We were shocked by God's Miracle as my mother called it, and we cried and laughed as we ripped off Holiday wrapping on a Christmas morning for the first time. Later I found out the church had come in the middle of the night to give us this Christmas treat. Since then I've always given more money to charities during Christmas. When you know what that special surprise can be like, you want everyone else to too. My mother was working hard and with my grandparents help we eventually moved into a new house near the Jr. High I would be attending the next year. My grandparents bought the house for my mother and us, a semi sprawling bright 3 bedroom. During this time my mother told me she'd like for me to meet my real father. I knew very little about him, other than he would never be "the knight in shining armor" I wanted him to be, according to my mom. I knew that he was a police officer in Southern California and I knew that I had another brother and some sisters by him. That was it.
RECKONING (For Christina) What more can I say than this I'm sorry to have missed every hug and kiss mutual partners in crime sisters who stood for each other I'm sorry it was missed I will always have more to say than this. At fate's beckoning we walk the path of dust shit that should never happen to anyone, why us? why were WE never loved enough? All the WHY'S in the world will not make less our hurdle Leap now we must shattered souls flying outrunning the rules set upon us not becoming sharpened dust Higher than the furthest ever flown off the swing It's just as scary too: Knowing even waylaid by being laid aside Gifts without proper wrapping still sparkle with greatness inside

I was ecstatic when my mother told me she'd arranged for me to come and visit my dad, his wife and kids. As the time drew near I grew more and more nervous; what would he look like? Would they accept me for me? Most importantly, I ruminated on the one question I'd been tagged with at birth: Why did he leave? I was happy that day to meet him, and my family that looked JUST LIKE ME. I never considered till then that my self image might have been skewed by not knowing my real father. We look near identical, and for once I was happy to have my face. For the next year I visited with my father's family, getting especially close to my Big Mama. Big Mama was my father's mother, the matriarch of the family. Ruler since my father's father had died when he was 12. She had battled alcoholism for most of her life I came to find, but by the 90's she was sober and god-fearing to the max. She would take me shopping and tell me stories of what it was like before I left. Living in a world where something like 10 years had never passed grew frustrating. I asked her why, no one had come to get me. I asked her why they let me go. She told me it was my mother's decision and that was that. My mother of course told me that my father had signed away his parental rights in exchange for no child support ever. Sussing out the truth of the matter would take time and even more trust. The year Big Mama died was one of my worst. It was 1994, and I was feeling pain every day. Even though Doug wasn't around, I couldn't be happy. These days he would pick up my brother and sisters and take them to a motel, as he was homeless and living in his car. He once or twice asked me to come to which I smirked a, "Doubt It". Hormones had begun flooding my system back in 1990 when I got my first period at 10. Having a C cup, being 5'8 and a real woman at 11 was a bitch. A classmate of mine recently told my youngest sister, "Your sister was full grown in elementary school!" Being as big as I was I was still pretty skinny, but as the year passed in 1994 I started eating and never really stopped. I gained 100 pounds in a year or so. Perhaps I gained the weight to shield myself from future sexual abuse? Perhaps I gained a lot of weight because I didn't feel like exercising, only sleeping. I had started to be a bit more twisted at this time, hiding GNR's Use Your Illusion II and Nirvana's Bleach and Insecticide from my mother. Became hooked on Nirvana's appreciation of the bitter feeling on the insides of us. Kurt was a hero, because I knew he felt the same way I did a lot of the time. The darkness seemed to overwhelm me and I claimed to be sick so much I actually attended 80 days out of 180 when it came to my 7th grade. Allergies, Stomach Problems, and Depression were fun times, but it was even funner in my dreams. So I closed the shades and listened to Nirvana and began smoking Pall Mall menthols. My mother was very worried about me, but whenever she would bring up the darkness I carried around like a torchlight I would scream and shout at her to leave me alone. She in turn would get angry and we started fist fighting around that time. Really this consisted of me pushing my mother, my mother being shocked and then knocking the fuck out me, once or thrice. Thankfully the new Nirvana came out, and I listened and screamed along. Never one too into metal or the goth scene I started to appreciate the dark dwelling folk that wore black nail polish. Even as I wore a traditional chola haircut, I wore Dickies and double heeled ska shoes, a mix-match of teenage rebellion on any given day. When Kurt died, I stayed home from school. I didn't understand why he did it, why did he leave us alone like that? I listened to Courtney scream over the radiowaves WHY! And I cried with her. It was that day, I decided never to kill myself. Or try my best not too. Understanding that he had never known how he touched me, how he saved me…I knew that he could not save himself. Maybe he felt like he had nothing left to give, that we, fans and commercial hoes alike had taken all. Forever I will know Kurt Cobain as the man who saved my life, when he died I was furious. How could he kill himself knowing that we fans were out there? I knew that if I were to commit suicide this same question would haunt every step of my brothers and sisters, something I could never die knowing. So I started therapy, which really didn't go that well. My mother and I saw the same therapist, a wrong move on anyone's part. We guessed too much from the therapist I think, I thought at the time she had told my mother what I said about her and vice versa. Then I didn't understand my intuitive gifts, nor did I recognize them in my mother. Things went along, but before long they changed once more. Doug had been living behind the church that we all still attended. He had been ordained during the years that my mother had spent apart from him. I believed that his new found Christian faith was a ploy to reaquire my mother. He spoke at length with many pastors who then spoke at length with my mother, and the pressure was on. Sad to say, their reuniting would come at very troubling time. My youngest sister, the brain and joys of the family was a precocious 3 around then. She was full of smiles and offers of hugs for all of us. Inquistive to the max, she was often impatient refusing to wait for us to reload the VCR with her favorite tape or feed her a snack when she wanted. So she began doing things on her own, like learning how to rewind and press play on the VCR before she could speak or walk properly. Even though her father and my mother had split up when she was less than a year old, it seemed not to affect her early baby years. Using the talents of foreign au pairs, including one crazed Michael Jackson fan my mother found a way to work a full-time job, coming home to parent at night. I helped out as I could, we all did. One day I was changing my sister's diaper and she told me a dream she had. She said she hurt down there, cause "she" had shoved sticks in there. I didn't know who she meant but I was seriously alarmed and told my mother. My mother called the school to warn them that another child might be inappropriate touching my sister. Sooner than later, I was called into the Principal's office at my new High School. A sherriff's deputy wished to speak with me regarding accusations of sexual abuse. They told me the girl my sister had fingered so to speak, was not their main suspect. My stepfather was. The sherriff told me that they had questioned my sister in the prescene of my mother and my sister had named my stepfather as the person who had touched her. I could not tell them that he had touched me, I had no definitive proof on that. I told them that he had abused me, physically and emotionally to which they seemed not to care. They then arrested my stepdad. That night my mother bailed him out, and somehow they got back together. My mother supported my stepdad and refused to believe an allegation leveled. She told us all it was her place to be by her husband's side. She told us that even if her husband had touched us, it would not matter as God's will was for a wife to cleave to her husband. Understandably, I was quite angry. Doug moved into the house soon after. He took me aside while my mother was gone and told me quite gently that their 4 year seperation had been my fault. He told me that from now on my mother would follow God's laws, and that if I had a problem with that I should leave. So after a bit, I did.