How I see her

 I see you as so bruised and battered. You are bloody and beaten. I see you with marks all over your skin, they are black ,blue and purple. I see a body that is broken.  I see you stuck there in that day with those men and you don't see how things can be any different. I am trying to see you as a person as a young girl who wanted all normal thing. The normal things  that every girl your age wants and that is more than hard for me to comprehend. I struggle that you were just a normal 13 year old girl and not an adult woman making your own decisions.  You have blocked out the world.  You have turned everyone off.  You truly believe that you deserved what happened to you. You believe that if you made a  different choice you wouldn't have been so wounded.  You are completely stuck in that time, in that day; all those hours.  It was dark when they came the sun just coming up and it was dark when they left.  Your senses are on high every second of every day. You are more aware of each and every sense, than a single person could even imagine.  Touch hurts, there are moments you can still feel them after all this time.  There are times that there is  a smell of them and for a few seconds the entire world stops.  There are times that taste will bring me back and I freeze.  There are times I hear a group laughing or people chanting and I want nothing more than to hide; those things are more than dangerous. There are features that I see and remind me of one of them and the panic that creates is something so instantaneous that it happens with out any thought. I carry all of those with me in my everyday. I often struggle even taking a shower, I don't feel safe and I don't want to feel the water on my skin or see the pictures in my head.  I know that all of these things are things that the 13 year old lives with all this time later, even to today.  She keeps her eyes closed thinking if I don't see it then it can't be. If I try to just be small and quiet, I can more easily forget. It's easier to live in the dark then risk more hurt. She hurts every day she hurts and everyday she wants to die.  There is a pain for her that even breathing is a struggle.  She has to hold on to even a piece of hope if she didn't she wouldn't still be alive but she is and that has to mean something.  You are alive Callahan and we don't know how or why, but you are breathing.  They didn't kill you.  They didn't.  What happened to you feels as close to death as a person can be while still breathing.  I know that you are ashamed, and hurt and so afraid, but know you aren't alone and I want to believe with all your heart that you are not the things they did to you.  You are not the words that they called you.  You are not the hate, or the disgusting girl you believe you are.  If it takes me forever, I will never stop trying to reach you.  I will never stop until you can open your eyes and know that we are alive and breathing and there are good things and people to experience. Our brains know this and somewhere someday  our heart  will believe that too.  I am not giving up,  I will never ever give up.  You are more than you imagine and I will never ever leave you alone.  I am here.

  

I heart your heart