The things we dont say

Skeletons are a name for the buried caskets. There are those however, that belong to our closets. Those that we hide behind layers and layers of nice outfits. Sometimes we hide them because we killed the bearers of the bodies, other times; we hide them because they are just skeletons…burdens we bear for no apparent reason. Manacles for our undeserving arms and legs. Nevertheless, at times, pulling the skeleton out does help. Maybe not much, but at least, it keeps us from suffocating in the stink.

I read blogs run by writers who expose even their innermost secrets to an online community that is very much all and sundry. Some behind pseudonyms, others face on. Without wavering. I envy the audacity in their writing. However, isn’t it through your own experiences that you manage to teach? Not? Well, my writing mojo today comes to me in the wee of the night, spurred by thoughts of my sisters and a chat I had with a newly made friend…this mojo today comes out to undress me.

I am an overbearing sister to all young girls, and mostly to my sisters. I fear the sight of young girls walking home alone from school. I see harm in the face of every man who steals glances at them, even innocently. Every time I watch the news, I rarely fail to catch a piece on a she who was defiled. So it becomes even worse. I carry around a chronic fear, fear for my sisters…always thinking that someone is going to harm them… I am overprotective of them, even though I rarely show them this. But why?

I am ashamed of speaking about it. I have not told a soul too many…not even my closest friends, that this overprotection is not out of sheer love but things unrelated. At the moment I am debating on whether or not to stop typing because I do not see any sense in this post, and because my family reads my blog… However, let us see how and where it goes.

I do not remember his face, not even his name. But I do remember the colour of the door. It was wooden and blue. Behind it is where our forced violent rendezvous would be. Days and days. Me, 6 years of age…him , 40-something. My mother and his wife were best friends, and she would send me to her house for this and that from time to time. If I found him instead of her, he would usher me in, lift me up and work his fingers up my dress. 6 years old. I used to call it ‘that thing that he does’, only in my mind. There are times he would sit me on his lap and force himself in. He made me discover why I had a hole down under…. At times when we watch news, we fail to comprehend how a grown man forces his way into a girl whose organs are not even formed. It was too painful to forget. Too painful that for years and years sex and pain were things I couldn’t separate. Each existed because of the other.

If you know me that well, you know how photographic I am about the memories of my childhood. This was the onset of the vividness . Pain makes me memorise, unfortunately. In it was the kind of pain that leaves an imprint in your mind, the kind that makes you jump even at the mention of a word remotely associated. I remember things, even colours of shirts he put on…and his slippers, cut at the back into half to fit in his short foot. But the weirdest thing is I do not remember his name.

We stayed in a suburban area, in rental houses before moving back to the rural areas. I was always the earliest to get back home from nursery school, and the nanny would leave me alone for the better part of the afternoon. He would carefully time her, wait for her to leave, and then he would come for me. I never said no. I was afraid of him. I never told. Before this post, only a tweet pal knew about it. I do not have memories of loosing virginity to a boy I even remotely liked. When time came for me to allow one to ruffle the diamonds, and he asked “ Why there be no blood now? “, I blamed a bicycle that up to now , I cannot ride.

I have been ashamed of this for 20 something years. We since then moved location. Why I decided to blog about it? Because someone asked me why I am always worried about my sisters, and I could not tell him the exact reason because I am ashamed. I will not blame it for anything that is happening in my life right now, even though for years and years, it made me feel dirty and unwanted: and as usual, this came with its own mortifying branches of ordeals in the struggle. I have however picked up pieces of the broken pots and dusted my dress, moved on from that. But the fear I have for the young ones who have not even learnt the difference between an eye and a nose is what strangles me day and night.

The courage to share comes from the coincidental realisation that a very good friend of mine went through the same ordeal as a child; and the questions in my mind as to why we are ashamed of talking about these things. Questions as to why girls are raped and their eyes forever face the ground, never looking up again in the fear that the world will judge them. Anyway, understand me when I say that I fear for our girls…the young ones in the rural areas and even the urban areas who do not have the advantage of a school bus to take them home…even those that spend the day in the scavenging watch of vicious uncles, cousins, and neighbours. I fear for them.

Well, my skeleton is out. Let it go stink somewhere else.