WUNRN

http://www.wunrn.com

 

Poem by Stella Funk Butler

Stellafunk@aol.com

 

Found My Voice

 

The first time

 

I didn’t understand

 

I was much too young to know

 

 who was the woman on the floor

 

                               she looked like my mother

 

I can’t be sure

 

I’ve had so many by age three

 

I cried “Mommy please don’t die”

 

as she lay upon our floor

 

what happened next is

 

too awful to tell

 

 

The second time

 

I didn’t know his name

 

didn’t know what he’d done

 

I watched and stood in terror

 

 

Not a sound came out of my mouth

 

He was as black as night

 

and is no more

 

The third time

 

I am told I helped bury him

 

I’m only six

 

hardly strong enough

 

to be of help

 

 

I do remember the shovel

 

in my hand

 

I thought I was burying the woman

 

                                    I’m told it was a man

 

 

The fourth time

 

I see a field of many bodies

 

just outside my school

 

                the alligators

will take care of them

 

The fifth time

 

It is I who lays upon the slab

 

I don’t know why they laugh

 

        I’m naked, cold and scared

 

 

Somehow I’ve escaped the blade

 

but not much else

 

I have no voice

 

as I roll off the cement grave

 

into the woods I run

 

The sixth time

 

I have many sexual adult violators

 

too numerous to count

 

it’s a community thing

 

 

The seventh time

 

my own birthmother

 

defiles me

 

then frightens me

 

with a knife

 

 

Today

 

    I am the daughter of many

 

by birth, step, foster and adoption

 

   I feel blessed to be loved by so many

 

Today I’ve found my voice

 

I will not rest

 

Until those

 

         who take another’s life

 

is put to rest

 

 

Like so many others

 

I’ve become resilient

 

God has restored

 

that which was stolen

 

“No more” I say “no more,

 

will another human take a life

 

as long as I have breath”