Not My Hips

I thought that after seven years, the fear would have faded.

I thought that after seven years, I could be as everyone else without pain or discomfort.

I thought after seven years, I would be me again.

After all, it was so long ago.

I remember being eight years old and waking to the feeling of another's presence in my bed. He draped his arm around me and whispered Stay calm, everything is okay, go back to sleep.

The sleep I fell back into was anything but calm.

The world around me had changed from being kind and happy to scary and big. I woke and immediately wished i hadn't. I fell asleep and my dreams reminded me of what i was in for when I woke. Everyone was out to get me, everything was scary, nothing was right.

He crept to the door joining my room to the world and told me that if I came out we could have fun. Just us. I remember how when he spoke the spit would be sucked through his teeth. He told me to come and play; Maybe it was a game for him.

He mustn't have liked my face. Maybe I wasn't appealing enough. Maybe my lack of pimples gave too much away about my youth. Whatever the reason, he never wanted to see me. He never faced me straight on. The coward.

I wish it could stay in the past where it belongs. I wish I felt normal when my friend took my hand and I didn't leap away as if feeling the sting of a boiling hot knife. I wish my life was ruled by my hopes for the future rather than my fear of the past.

I thought it would be better when he moved out. I could make it through Christmas and Birthdays, there were almost 359 days a year where I didn't have to see him at all. I would be okay. I would be me again. I was wrong. I don't think I really remember me from before. All i know is me now, and she is the shell of the girl she could have been. What a disappointment, she is.

I was playing Just Dance at a friend's house. It was my friend's birthday, and I was having such a lovely time. There was cake, a Woolworth's chocolate one. Laughter filled the room at our terrible dancing and giddy experience of innocence. I was sweaty from dancing. I was a bit guilty...I knew I should have let the birthday girl win, but I'm competitive and I already got her a present. She didn't need two.

But our other friend wanted to play too. She needed me to move over so she could fit in the space. She took the approach of casual contact between friends, she touched my hips from behind to try and shuffle me along.

Did I react appropriately? Did I jump away and run from the room? Did I cry? Did I leave the house thinking that all of my efforts had been pointless, I was never going to be the same, why try? Who's to say. All I can say is that after that night, No One is allowed to touch my hips.

Seven years ago, My life was the story told to warn girls from leaving the house at night.

Maybe it still is.

Now I look at the news and I see my face in the murdered eight-year-old girl whose life was stolen. I see my name in the article about the most recent attack; the woman was just walking home from the library. It was two days later when she finally got leave from the hospital and returned to her home. She doesn't feel like the woman who used to live there. A part of her had been stolen and she knows she won't get it back. I see my life being told over and over, in different countries, in different girls. I see the statistics that tell me this story will be told in my life again. I am the canvas through which tragedy is told. History repeats itself and what's to say that this is any different? The statistics don't favor me. If it's going to be me or my friend, I will not let it be her. How dare the world try to take her too. She will live her life as herself and no one will take that from her. She will grow and she will love and she will never know the freedom she has been granted, because for her to know what she has, it must be taken away. And it will Not be. The world has enough. Leave her be. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

So take me.