I was so young, too young to know
that it wasn’t just a game.
They told me it was normal,
something everyone did,
a secret shared between us
that no one else would understand.
I didn’t know what was wrong
or what was being taken.
I thought it was just how things were—
their hands on me,
their whispers in my ear.
It didn’t hurt,
not in the way I imagined pain.
It felt strange,
like I was supposed to smile,
to play along.
But something inside me twisted,
unraveled a little more each time.
They told me I was special,
that this was a secret I should keep,
so I did.
I didn’t know how to feel it,
how to name the feeling that settled in my chest.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to like it or hate it.
I didn’t know what was happening,
but I knew I couldn’t say anything.
I didn’t know it was wrong.
I didn’t know I should be scared,
or that my body was mine.
I didn’t know it wasn’t normal
for someone to take what didn’t belong to them.
They made me think it was just a game,
and games don’t have rules,
not when you’re that young,
not when you’re still trying to figure out
who you are,
what you are.
But the shame came anyway,
settled inside me like a stain.
It wasn’t visible,
but it was always there.
It grew heavy,
dark,
and I carried it for so long,
feeling filthy in places I couldn’t touch,
feeling like something had been stripped away
but I didn’t know how to ask
or what to say.
I looked at myself in the mirror
and saw a stranger’s face,
someone who had been bent and twisted
in ways I couldn’t undo.
I wanted to scream,
but I didn’t know how.
I wanted to run,
but I didn’t know where to go.
I kept the secret they gave me,
kept it locked in my chest
where it festered,
becoming something darker,
something harder to carry.
The wolves circled,
their eyes full of hunger,
but it wasn’t them I feared.
It was the silence,
the way it seeped into me
like a sickness I couldn’t cure.
And then there’s Medusa—
her gaze turning everyone to stone,
but no one saw
what she had been made into.
They didn’t see the child
who had been taught to be quiet,
to be still,
to endure the things they didn’t understand.
I wasn’t her,
but in the reflection,
I saw parts of myself
that felt just as cold,
just as broken.
I didn’t know it was wrong.
I didn’t know how to make it stop.
But I learned,
eventually,
that I wasn’t the one to blame.
I learned that I didn’t have to hold their secret anymore,
that my body was mine,
and I had the right to say no.
But the shame never quite goes away.
It shifts,
it changes,
but it stays—
like the echo of their words,
like the weight of their hands.
And I carry it,
but not as something that defines me.
Not anymore.
I wasn’t a game.
I wasn’t a secret.
I was just a child.
And I deserve to be whole again.