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"Have the
courage to testify against my attackers?
The joke was
on me. After all, was it me, a skinny, little fifteen-year-old girl, who
invited those three barbarians to brutally rape me?
I was
scorned, labeled the town whore. Boys sneered at me, grabbing me when I walked
by them in the crowded hallways in school. Even former friends shoved me
around, muttering, “Always knew you were a tramp.” Everyone shunned me. The
scribbled words “bitch” and “slut” screamed at me from my school locker. Crank
phone calls to my home angered my parents and rattled me....
Futile to
try to convince myself I did not provoke the incident. I felt worthless and
fell into a grave depression.
So I slit my
wrists.
I had heard
about suicide but had no idea of its consequences. Death was an abstraction.
The desire for release from the grueling darkness intensified. Razors were in
my parents’ bathroom. I sneaked in and took one of my father’s double-edge
razor blades out of the plastic sleeve. I ran back to the hall bathroom and
shut the door.
My eyes fix
on the edges of the blade. I let it hover nervously over my left wrist. A few
minutes pass. I pretend that my Daddy will miss me when I make that first cut
across a large vein. Bright red blood oozes out slowly. Dazed by what I have
done, I stare. The thick stream trickles down the palm of my hand and over my
fingers, dripping slowly, onto my mother’s spotless floor. Does this mean no
more chocolate brownies or pizza parties? No more kickball?"
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THE BACKLOG OF RAPE
PROCESSING KITS
