i am already feeling triggered just reading this word.

i tried to make the feelings go away by imagining innocuous, innocent tiny things, like an ant crawling over a leaf, or how my daughter’s soft, smooth newborn feet felt in my palm.

but what i kept thinking about was how small we were. when it happened, when we were hurt and violated and used by members of our family. we were tiny.

both hands, then, could probably fit into one of his. i still needed a booster seat on my chair, which i also needed help climbing into. i was lower than my kitchen countertops – i had to go onto my tippy-toes to be at eye-level. i believed in santa (and would for another several years). i wasn’t in school yet.

fucking tiny.

i’ve seen pictures of pocketbrit, she hardly reached his thigh.

and i just don’t understand any of it. how they could do those things. how the signs that we weren’t okay weren’t noticed. why wasn’t anyone paying attention? what was everyone else doing? were we so little we became invisible?

it’s also a shrinking sort of shriveling, sick feeling i get when i think of it now. and like i might drown in the grief of it.