The Offering

Expecting too much, yet way too little, I can hear the expectations accompanied by their opposites ringing out of her like school bell after recess.

“Yuh mek mi look bad. Yuh is nuttin but a bloody shame nasty, dutty wukless gal. Yuh nuh have no ambition. Yuh likkle dawg,” her mother shouts.

It’s been two years, give or take a month or two and even now, it’s the picture; the only picture they hang on the walls of her artless museum.

It’s what they talk about before and behind her; the only thing they’ve been talking about, using it against her. A constant reminder of the disappointment she is.

Molested, but said naught to either of them. Didn’t trust to tell them; didn’t trust them, so she opted to unload what had been unloaded into her to the person/s with whom she had experienced trust; a faux trust, but it was all she knew.

She told them she’d been raped by the guy she’s in love with.
“Aint no wolf crying. It happened, but I soon gave in and it was no longer that,” she says.

But now, something else had happened. He had watered her soul with fluid that would soon give rise to her inside; that’d give rise to a new soul.
What would she do? What could she do? Tell them – her mother and sister- or end it? Does she take her life, putting an end to her soul and the soul growing within her soul?

No decision made. Guess she didn’t need to make any cause the guy she ‘loves’; the guy who - though married - told her he loved her too, beats her to her own suicide.
He gives.
Not support.
Not words of encouragement.
Not hope.
Not a solution, but five more steps toward the ending of two souls.

He gives her five tiny pills. Talk about killing two birds with one stone! Just that in his case – its five stones killing-slowly killing two.

Bleeding, cold sweat washes her fourteen year old body, leaving her cold and for dead. She’s dying, dying, dying then by a few mercy seconds, she’s saved.
“Your daughter is pregnant. She tried committing suicide …” the doctor said to the clueless mother. Shocked, bewildered she delivers a three-piece-combo-box across her jaws. Pressure rises then drops and a body gets rid of a soul; a soul that never was.

That was then – approximately two years ago, but they refuse to live in the now; refuse to accept or reject what happened and heal. Instead, they take on jobs as professional taunters- taunting her everyday- every second of every day- every waking moment and when she sleeps, she sees them still.

Abuse follows suit. The verbal, the physical, the emotional.
They don’t trust her. They don’t try to trust her. They make no attempts at trying to repair the trust.

Nothing she says is the truth, so she lies to satisfy their expectations.
Nothing she does is good enough, so she tries harder, yet never able to deliver the expected.

No room for mistakes, but the human in her makes them anyway and sticks, stones, pots, pans, kicks, boxes, fists, cuts, aches, pains become her mantra. Cries, cries for help, cries for help from her drowning in her mistake go out; go unheard.
She smiles and I see her tears, hear her cries.

I smile back, offering her a word that does not cease, but promises to dry her tears each time she cries. I offer her a hand to hold when she feels like running, two arms to run into. I offer her two ears that will not always be in her presence, but will always be present. Ready to listen, yet not judge, not criticize, just listen.
Unknowingly, she offers me a glimpse of her heart and I want her to keep it pure; I want to help her to keep what’s left of it pure.

So I offer - not my hand, my arms, my ears anymore; not parts of me, but me.
Will she learn to trust? If not me, my intentions?
Will she accept my offering of myself to her or not?