You were not there when I was eleven years’ old And a friend forced me to give him oral sex, You were not there when I was choking and crying You were not there when he forced himself on top Of me and did not care that I was crying. You were not there when he threatened me to kill me and my family if I told, You were not there when I was told to just forget about it and move on You were not there when two men raped me in a dorm room at the University I attended, You were not

Feeling alone, Made mistake of trying to reach out to advocate, Was told that she did not care, I was just needing someone to listen, Someone to be there, I am on deployment, Stuck on a huge ship, Out in the middle of the ocean, Feeling alone, depressed, There is no one to talk to, No one that cares, I need to talk to someone, But I will not talk to a male about What happened to me at technical school. The Chain of command does not care And retaliates against me The trained a

An inspirational poem I wrote after co creating, Service with my friend and mentor Lynda. There have been people put in my life that have been lights in my darkness, They showed me the way back to myself by shining their light in the darkness, They gently guided me onto the healing path when I was lost in deep emotional pain and had no hope, They came beside me to tell me that could borrow there hope until I had my own hope, They told me that I mattered, They cared about me a