04/29/2007

Expressing the unthinkable in verse

By Kathy Gibbons
Features editor
kgibbons@
record-eagle.com

Read Kathy's past columns here

He took five years of her life
Not to mention something she can never get back;
Her innocence

Just 16, she sits across from me at a table in an anteroom off her school library. I'd read a poem she had written about being sexually abused by her brother, and asked her if we could meet. She agreed.

It wasn't like he was some abusive boyfriend,
Or even just a casual friend,
He was her brother

It started when she was about 8, her stepbrother about 14. He lived with a relative, whose house was nearby and where she spent every other weekend, too.

They were in the basement of that other house when it happened the first time, and all of the times after that, over five years. She knew it was wrong, and didn't like it, but his threats kept her from telling. She didn't think anyone would believe her anyway.

Until she was about 13 and wrote about it in a note to her best friend. A friend of that friend saw the note. That girl told her own mother, who called the police.

While this girl was angry at the person who told, she was also relieved. Her stepbrother was arrested, and is now in prison.

She has come to terms with her past
And what has happened,
But she will never forgive and forget
And it's been so hard to move on

But somehow, she is moving on. Her parents have been wonderful, she said, letting her talk — or not. They understand how upset she is at a family member who makes her feel it's her fault that her stepbrother went to prison three years ago.

"He calls all the time, and she goes down there all the time,” this girl said, clearly hurt by the relative's behavior. "She says, 'We could have just gotten him help.'

"I just think back on all the stuff he did and how … she's been treating me and it breaks me.”

She vents to her friends, too, and said she's probably ready for some counseling; before, she wasn't. It's also good if she keeps really busy.

"If there's nothing going on, then I think about it,” she said. "If I'm home alone, I, like, scream, or turn on my music really loud and try to block it out.”

She said she's fantasized about getting revenge for all of those times in the basement.

But talking to her, I couldn't help but think her best revenge is that she has survived as well as she has. She gets that it wasn't her fault. And she is looking forward to making a good future for herself. After she graduates from high school next June, she hopes to go to college, away from here. She wants a career — and marriage and kids someday.

But there is one cloud on the horizon. Her stepbrother, now 22, will get out of prison next May. It's not a day she looks forward to.

"I hate him,” she said simply, adding that she never wants to see him again.

"I will never be able to forgive him,” she said. "He hurt me and took away so much.”

Reach Kathy Gibbons at kgibbons@record-eagle.com