The Girl in the picture

haunts me with her gray

Soul, robbed of light

Too young to ever choose this 

She is a ghost

Who in all other aspects

Resembles me–

Breastplate taken in battle.

Which is why I see your face before 

Me always

The iron bars invisible to all but

We two

Jailed by men with carved out hearts

I carry you, darling

Close to my own

Beg the God of air and light 

To teach us how

To fly

Away from the shadows

Where ordinary humans claw and devour 

All but unaware 

They have bartered their own

Nearly extinguished 

Eternal selves

For shreds of ashen dung

Pretend you go

pretend you had a lost daughter

Who in your mind will always be

A beautiful baby girl

Now pretend that in order to survive

You start to see your beautiful lost baby

In everyone

Then “everyone” starts to do things they really should not do

Go places they should not go

Smash through rules…

designed for their safety

So you, poor sot, try to warn them away…

From the crap they should not get into

But they don’t really wanna listen

Because who the heck are you anyway?

(Half-crazed stranger with some lost kid)

Yet you still 

love them

You know because you lost a child.

So you go find them

In the crack houses

Strip joints

And IRS offices where they work

…and screw up royally

Because you know

That is what love does

Abstract-I get it

So let me try once more–

Years ago I rode on a bus in a country men travelled to in order to have “legal” sex with minors.

A white man got on the bus with a girl from this other country.

A girl, not a woman.

We.  The people on the bus.  Watched them travel together.  Knowing (ball-parking, at least)…their destination.

Their terrible destination.

If she is alive somewhere I would hold her

Tell her her “job” was not her fault 

Tell her I love you

(No matter what)

–I love you

Now please darling, 

Come home.

What if 

What if 

Words in a bottle were

Worlds in a bottle

What if 

You and I 

Were strangers in a room

Filled with people

Just as broken as me

What if

There really was

A connection between

Calvary and cavalry

And one could be used

To summon the other

What if you had a child

You loved very much

Who would be raised by

One kind of

Monster or another?

What would you do

To save her?

What would you

Do to bring her Home

?

Rape Case in Brooklyn

The case shocked when it was first reported–a man sought help for his daughter who was being sexually assaulted in a Brooklyn park.

The story began to break into pieces within a week of its appearance.  The victim was consenting?  The victim had been having sex with her father!?

Ugh.

Most of us are done by this point in the story.  Too much creepy. 

The young woman refused to “do court” and the charges against all of her sexual partners fell apart.

Which leaves several salient questions–

How safe and child-friendly are parks in Brooklyn?

Why were no lesser charges pursued against any of the principals? Public lewdness?  Indecency? Incest?

And last–(the one which concerns me the most) what will become of these people? 

Especially the young woman.

The explanation of her behavior includes a life of foster care and group homes, a fundamental disconnection from her biological family–a father who could be called predatory at best.

With no more pieces of a biography than that I would hazard that she has attachment disorder, a syndrome caused by neglect and a lack of attachment bonding in babies and young children.

The question of what happens to the adult victims of attachment disorder plagues me because my adopted children have it.

None of us may want to face what happened in that park that night, but we should all question what will happen to her?  

How do you teach a woman her own worth or the value of a father who protects his daughter instead of exploiting her?

And what of the men in this story?  Each put a biological function of his anatomy over the last shred of his humanity.

My adopted daughter complains that I am not to be trusted because I judge people for things like this.

I would argue that one can only trust those who are willing to judge these things.

It ain’t love if you don’t keep all the little girls (lost or otherwise)…

Safe

At night 

In the parks of Brooklyn.

Pictures of Hae

I am haunted by the grief caused by the murder of a girl.

I am not convinced Sarah is. She seems to have an almost Capote-esque crush on the alleged the murderer.

Understandable. Why would he talk to her if she did not establish rapport? But in establishing a cozy rapport with the alleged killer she may have jettisoned her objectivity and an accurate métier for the humanity of Hae Min Lee.

Sarah says she read Hae’s diaries. She has surely interviewed dozens of her classmates. She should be able to paint a better picture of this young woman who…

Believed rather recklessly in love

Made good grades

Had a solid plan for her future

Played lacrosse and helped the wrestling team

And left a hole in the heart of her community.

If you cannot conjure up the living girl, you cannot comprehend either the depth of her loss or the demand for justice.

A life was taken. What good is clever reporting if the one who lost the most is but a cartoonish shadow of the young woman who was Hae Min Lee?

Grover Cleveland–rapist bully?!

This article is appalling. It outlines a story of date rape, aggression, child abandonment, and political bullying perpetrated by one of our nation’s presidents. The story was aired and well-documented before his election.

Yet none of the story is found on his Wikipedia page.

I think it is time to speak bluntly about a man who appears to have fooled a lot of people but who was a predator and a liar.

And a textbook example of a sexual predator who hides his crimes and brutalizes his victims.

If Cleveland can have fooled us all, what predators do you know who appear honest and trustworthy, even though they are decidedly not?

The no-bark collar

For years I labored under the illusion that child sexual abuse was rare and that the victims could find help, even if their parents were indifferent or the abusers.

Wrong and wrong.

More than half of all children are victims of sexual assault before they reach the age of 18.

Most if not all of us have known and/or been groomed by a sexual predator.

And yet…

The pressure to not talk about the known sexual predators among us is so strong that I frequently write posts and then refrain from publishing them.

I am an old woman and a mouthy one at that, but I have been told explicitly to shut up and shunned implicitly for speaking out against child sexual abuse.

The pressuring is convincing and effacing.

Imagine what it would do to a child.

The Symbols of a Broken Mind

He used structures, barriers, doorways, linens, athletic equipment to hide his aggressions.

And lies. So many lies.

This comes back to haunt me. I try to keep it in a mental suitcase because my grief over his aggression is still so intense.

Last night I had a dream that I saw a giant tire being pulled on a barge in front of me. I knew exactly what it meant.

I used to take children to play tennis. Right next to the tennis courts the football team had giant tires they used for strength training.

Charles used the tires to hide his broken actions, distorting play schema with devastating effect.

The elliptical nature of my description is for you, not me. I know too well what he did to hurt people with ordinary things.

I wish there was closure. I don’t really believe in it. Instead I think my unconscious mind will continue to bring to the fore these devastating symbols of lost innocence.

Barriers–he uses them to deceive and harm children, yet has no legal obstacle, tag or minder alerting others to his past.

It is one thing to not know how a predator isolates and subdues his prey. It is another entirely to know, and simply look away.