Broken Wings

As far back as I can remember I was caught up inside a place 

I simply could not understand.   
There was no sense to be made of the place and circumstances I was in.
It was confusing, violent and just so frightening. 
It was for me this bizarre world which to this day I still grapple with the very 

vivid recollections of such an ugly assortment of painful memories.

Like broken shards of glass I find myself walking across the floor of my past; 

walking along bleeding as I catch broken glimpses of my own face in these 

broken pieces of life, of time, and of me.

It was a long trip alone.  Can I find a precious memory of my life as a child? 
I want to.  I try to.  But no, I cannot.  That is my personal reality.
Can I live with that?  At most, yes.  

Today I realize that I can and more importantly I will  and I am!  

Because I choose to live my life ahead as a survivor, a teacher of sorts, 

and an advocate for the purpose of helping save, rescue, and somehow impact 

the lives of other children who like me were and are still caught inside 

the violent settings they too must call "home".

I cannot find one precious memory of my life as a child.
As far back as I can remember, there were always these violent, confusing

and devastating events that marked my life, my heart, my mind and my body.

With a quiet reservation I will lay the word [torture] out here as an emphasis,
a highlight in meaning if you will.

From a very, very young age I experienced forms of physical "torture" that I am unable to forget.
How does a person begin to describe that when your average person with a normal, decent and humane sense of values would not readily or even wholly be able to fathom such a thing being done to a child?
 

To describe the ugly and horrific meanings and examples of what it is to torture anyone, let alone a child, is not something that can be easily done in specific terms.
Either way you look at it, a normal conscience is more driven to reject such a thing as the sad state of what children are being put through at the hands of their parents.  At the hands of anyone really.

I was tortured physically as a little girl and it continued on up unto the age of 15.  What I am so fascinated by is that I was able to come through these atrocities alive and well; resilient.
It seems almost cruel to describe here inside these lines of which I've chosen to whisper such disturbing secrets and events; the details of my life as an abused child.
 

The cruelty I somehow believe will sadly fall upon the mental landscapes of the minds of my readers. 
I will not however take up long spaces speaking of the horrible details in their specific and absolute entirety. 
These shared writings are more of a testament of my overcoming my past and my struggle to become something beyond the once broken person I was; no longer a victim, but a survivor instead.

These shared writings and journal entries that I have written over the years are about the complexities of what physical, emotional and psychological abuses can and do impose upon an individual child; from a very personal standpoint...  Mine.

I am who I am today, and by the very Grace of God, I happy to add that I am a loving and quite healthy woman with my arms outstretched beneath the warmth of the sun and the sparkling shimmer of the stars.

It’s So Cold In Here

Going a few more years back into the preadolescence of my existence, I am probably about six years old.

I have absolutely no recollection of why I would be summoned from my bed in the middle of the night, nor any whole, personal understanding as to why I am about to be subjected to yet another degree of inhumane cruelty; such as to be locked into a deep meat freezer while it was actually still plugged in.

In my mind, I can clearly see myself walking so fearfully slow to the living room.

We lived on military housing at the time this incident occurred.

He sat cross-legged and told me to stand still in front of him, and then to undress from my little cotton nightgown, and to remove my panties as well.

I was so very tiny. 

The shelves of this big freezer removed so I could fit inside, as he demanded me to.

Naturally, I curled myself into a fetal position.  Terrified and confused.

The door shut and the lights went out, thus extinguishing the only source of heat.

What happened on the inside of my mind from that point, I am unable to say here.

 I was freezing there with the shivering sobs, as my mind echoed the one same sentence within my young mind, “It’s so cold in here…why?”

I do not remember the door opening, but I do somehow recall the feeling of immediate dread if ever I passed this freezer in our house.

I wonder at times, here within the spaces of my silence, if I can recall these horrific things done to me as a child, do they.

Do they ever sit back and reflect upon the horrible things they did to me?

Moreover, if so, how is it that they can even manage the words, “I love you daughter”?

I have often quietly wondered, while curled up inside this freezer, what actually were they thinking?  What were they doing on the other side of the freezer door?

And then, the deeply resounding question throughout the years I have felt so quietly tormented by this one specific memory, “Why…why did they do this to me; why?”

"Fathers, DO NOT PROVOKE YOUR CHILDREN, lest they become discouraged." 

(Colossians 3:21)