(Warning: Editorial note that this letter contains triggers around sexual abuse, rape, and uses mature language.)
it's not your fault, sweet, sweet little me.
Little freckle faced deaf girl, sweet child with the scars
it's not your fault, was never your fault
when he led you into the corner, time and again, told you how special you were, how 'grown up' , how 'beautiful', when he touched you and touched you and touched you and you felt so sick and yet proud that he liked you
when others led you into some corner, some basement, some dark, quiet space where they could speak in whispers you could never hear, laid hands on/in you in places you didn't want, leaving you feeling you were special for the moment you were touched and degenerate filth in all others
it was not your fault when you just gave up, when you gave in to endless drinking – anything to blot out the pain. All night, blackouts, waking up naked in strangers' beds. You thought it was, thought there was something so fundamentally foul about you, that your core was beyond redemption, that you were maimed, disabled, deaf, a reject, a nothing, a nobody, who the fuck do you think you are?
Then when you lay there, bleeding out of your ass and realized with horror that your housemates had all heard you scream as your boyfriend raped you. Eyes averted from you at breakfast the next day, you wanted to turn inside yourself, all my fault. Fuck. Why did I have to scream, why did I have to scream, why did I have to scream, fuck.
Sweet, sweet girl. None of this was your fault, none of this was ever your fault.
He hurt you. Your daddy hurt you. His touching you was his wrong, ever his wrong, never yours, sweet pure child. And you were sweet and you were pure and you always were and always will be.
The universe has profound love for you and you were always as you should be, not a mistake, never a mistake.
And while it's going to take time for you to heal and recognize the truth of these words, you will. You will be whole once more. You will live in light and the darkness of the past will be a scab to an unbelievably painful wound that lessens day by day, and you can see a future in which the wound simply is no more.
With love – so much of it,
