Roxine's Story

I was a kid – you were a man. My pain is palpable – but only to me. I can’t seem to move, to act, to breathe. In searching for answers, I only find pain as old, familiar questions arise again.

I wrote this just after I had attended the Jerry Sandusky trial in Bellefonte, PA.

I had been struggling, unable to write anything, and then sat down and penned this. I did not intend for it to be a poem; it’s just the way it came out.

This was published in The Daily Collegian on August 3, 2012 (the Penn State student-run newspaper). It is my hope that perhaps it provided some insight from the point of view of one victim/survivor on what being abused feels like – in the moment and in every moment thereafter.

Reading my story may trigger memories, reactions, and anxiety from your own personal experiences. Please use safe and healthy self-care practices in dealing with your personal responses.

I was a kid – you were a man. My pain is palpable – but only to me. I can’t seem to move, to act, to breathe. In searching for answers, I only find pain as old, familiar questions arise again.

An empty vessel – that’s all I’ve been – an empty vessel you stuck your **** in. Did you know that you killed me that day? Did you know you took everything away?

That hole you ripped apart inside of me filled up with anger, disgust, self-loathing. Years I’ve spent abusing myself: illicit sex, alcohol, my own personal hell.

You put me there – I was just a kid. Do you even know what you did? How can I make people understand? I was a kid – you were a man.

You took your time to gain my trust, told me I was special, pretty, loved. You told me it was our little secret. You told me it was something I’d never forget.

You were right in one respect, I never forgot. In fact, for me, the abuse never stopped. I’ve been raped time and time again by your memory, my family, other men.

Their refusal to hold you accountable, to make you pay, is just like you raping me every day. When I am here, when I let you in, I can feel you putting your mouth on me again.

Taking from me everything that was good, leaving me shattered, broken, misunderstood. How can I make people understand? I was a kid – you were a man.

How did this become my fault, my shame? Why do they look at me like I’m to blame? No, I didn’t stop you or say anything. How could I? Why would I? I was just a kid.

And you told me you’d kill her, you’d kill me too. Tell me, please tell me – what was I to do? Even now, 30 years later, the price is too high. It has cost me my family to ask the question “Why?”

Why they did nothing, why they sided with you, why it didn’t matter that I was abused. It was your reputation we had to protect. You were the adult, I was just a kid.

An empty vessel with no self-worth, left to fend for myself in this hell-on-earth. This hell you created and left me to. Please tell me now, what am I to do?

In searching for answers, I only find pain as old, familiar questions arise again. How can I make people understand? I was a kid – you were a man.