#MeToo

#MeToo

 

His practiced hand moved along her naked body

Lying on the paper covered table

In the minuscule exam room

 

His hair gray, his black frame glasses, perched on the tip of his nose

His melodic voice murmured to her Mother

As his fingers penetrated her tiny vagina

 

She lay frozen, her seven-year-old brain screaming

NO

Her seven-year-old body unable to resist

 

A hard nugget of shame

Lodged in her gut, took up residence in her head,

Made its home in her soul that day

 

A seven-year-old cannot define shame

A seven-year-old cannot protest when

The person she trusts the most stands by…mute

 

She mocked what the good doctor did

She laughed that he probed her vagina…a word she could not utter

And her Grandmother was the only one horrified

 

Afterward, the shame grew larger

It would happen again despite her protest

It would happen again despite the woman she trusted

 

It would happen again in the home of a trusted friend

While her son took his perverted pleasure

She made love to her tonic and gin

 

It would happen again because she deserved it

It would happen again because she was unworthy

It would happen again because she allowed it

 

The shame was woven into the very fabric of her psyche

As she grew older, the shame defined her

And she fed the beast in a spiral of drugs, alcohol, and more shame

 

Decades of self-abuse was the only relief, the only form of repression

Her soul screamed for redemption

Her soul lay in wait for a time when redemption was possible

 

#MeToo was the liberator

Bold women who finally gave voice to her shame

Courageous women who faced the beast, called it by name

 

#MeToo is the sword with which we slay the beast

Two little words that unite a legion of combatants

Two little words that start a revolution of redemption

*********************************************

I was finally able to write these words when the #MeToo movement swept across the country not long ago. Prior to that, the words stayed stuck in my tattered soul. When one woman gives voice to the assault, the abuse, the violation, it gives courage to other women who have been sexually assaulted to finally vomit up the bile. 

Many will ask, "Why now?" And I will replay, "Why not now?" For many years I drowned the shame with alcohol. It was never enough. The shame spiral doesn't end; memories, alcohol, regret, alcohol, revulsion, alcohol, fear, alcohol and on and on until you spiral down so far you finally reach bottom. Then somewhere, there is a tiny voice that whispers 'enough.' And you begin to claw your way out of the spiral. You begin to shout 'enough' instead of whisper. I finally grabbed my closest confidant, Ann, sat her down and said 'I need you to hear this story.' And I gave voice to the violation of my seven-year-old self. I gave voice to the anger and shame, my words an emollient to my baby soul. My friend Ann listened without judgment, tears in her eyes and when it was over, when I felt purged of the demons long torturing my soul, she hugged me close and said, 'Me too...'