Time to stand. time to go

Time to stand, time to go
Here we are the 3 of us, my mother, my sister and me. Our few belongings could fit into one bag. We had left him but he had left us first, taking all the furniture he and my mother had bought together, leaving for us the few clothes that he thought were due to us. We were going to my grandparent’s house. My mother a bruised and battered 27 year old, nothing had been too hard or cruel to throw at her fragile frame, she could take anything, from fists to bricks and now on every face brick I can see my mother’s face too. The red color of the brick is colored with my mother’s blood. The brick was a sign, it told us it was time to go, and the heavy thud that came from the blow to my mother’s face was our church bell chiming time to go, time to stand.

My mother’s warm blood trickled onto her floral skirt whose flowers immediately wilted and died. Instead of a beautiful scent we could smell death and fear, time to go, time to stand. It was our independence day we were free and this time our flowers would not die. Independence did not last very long, there was another destroyer waiting and lurking in the future, the dark side of the future, you can’t stand up in the dark you have to go where there is light. He was tall and big and he came to steal my hard won freedom, to colonize my fragile body for his selfish needs, he showed me something strange but always in secret, always when no one else could see, it happened in the dark and when it was over I could feel something flow inside me. He violated my young mind and body and made me a woman before my time. Just as my father had trampled on my mother’s flowers, he deflowered me and for eight years he killed my roses and destroyed my lilies and blocked the sun from my sunflowers. He was winning only until I came back from a new class in 6th grade, the teacher told me that my flowers could not be taken she called it sexual abuse and that it was wrong. From that class I knew I would stand again. Life’s battles are not fought in one single fight;we stand up for every day.