Virtualization

From the time I was a very little girl, until I was 17, I was abused in child pornography, child prostitution and ritualized torture. 

This poem was written during my recovery years, I have now moved beyond the flashbacks and PTSD and I am proud to say I am now thriving in my life. I am only now feeling safe enough to share it!

 

           Virtualization

I am a survivor of an unseen war

A war that goes on behind closed doors

In bedrooms

  And bar rooms

      And motel rooms

         In front of cameras

                For pornography films

 

I will not move amongst my silences weeping

 I will rise to the accompliment of women singing

     And shout out the truth of pain and degradation

I will not shy from my own touch on my breast

   I will reclaim my body

From the fists

  That held it in one hand

  While they exchanged money with the other

Dropping me like a sack of garbage

  Into the beds of strangers

Finding no love between their groping fingers

I recoiled

  Removed myself from my body

    While the dirty deed  

       Was done

I will not surrender to the

  White middle class streets of my childhood

     With their vacant laughter mocking me

Where Denial 

    was served with toast and coffee

No one noticed the tortured girl child

  Hidden inside a turtle shell

     Under layers and layers of survival

 

The child emerges

  Peeping out at a world

    That once blamed her for child prostitution

       That once shamed her 

            For being raped in child pornography    

I embrace her

   Longing to look into her eyes

But they are the same as my own

 

From the child:

Help!

  Nobody out there seems to know

    What it is like in here

To live with unseen horror

  That comes up for viewing when you least expect it

 

I have little control over

  Witnessing pornography ~click~

     Of the hard-core variety ~click~

        Perpetrated on my child body ~click~

 

The memories shatter moments

   Of peaceful contemplation  

       With pain horror degradation

And the infinite greed of males

 

I

  Run

     Run

        Run

But there is no hiding

  From the pornography that was my life

     As a little girl, teen, young womon

Tortured and tied down before the camera

   Now they hold my body hostage

Being raped and tortured ~click~

   Beaten and ravaged ~click~

      And degraded and dragged through

      The gutters of abuser’s minds ~click~

As each new perpetrator ~clicks~

    On whatever website

      Happens to be

         Portraying me

             Naked

 

I

 Run

    Run

       Run

From the thought

   But there is a rapist

      In every corner of my brain

And it hurts when I hear women defending pornography

  As “freedom of speech”

Just how my Child body being raped

  Became “speech” is a mystery not yet unraveled

The only freedom I have

  Is since I got away

     From the pornographers

        Who owned and sold my body

But yet I am not free of the pictures

I will never go back

  But I am forced to rerun ~click~

      The reruns ~click~

         That I wonder are now

             At this very moment ~click~

                 Being rerun

                      On the Internet ~click~

This very instant being

Defended as “Freedom of Speech”

 

I am a survivor of an unseen war

A war that goes on behind closed doors

Every 9 seconds a womon is beaten

Every 30 seconds a womon is raped

Now with the Internet ~click~

  Every second ~click~

     Of everyday ~click~

A womon can be viewed being

  Raped in pornography ~click~

It is time we STOP

  Calling this “Freedom of Speech”

And recognize it as the documentation

  Of crimes 

       that it is!

 

This poem can be heard in spoken word in:

http://art4changeglobal.com/

 

For more of my words: http://Loonwomon.wordpress.com