Just Words (for A President Elect)

Words are powerful. They have the power to hurt or to heal... to inspire or to devastate... to punish or reward... condemn or endorse.

The Nation of Change

"Words are seeds that do more than blow around. They land in our hearts and not the ground. Be careful what you plant and careful what you say. You might have to eat what you planted one day."-unknown

Words are powerful. They have the power to hurt or to heal... to inspire or to devastate... to punish or to endorse.

When I was 20 years old I was raped. He took something from me that I wasn't sure I would ever get back and in some ways maybe I never did. I spiraled into the darkest place I have ever been, I almost died- I wanted to. When someone takes something like that from you, you lose your sense of self- at least I did. Any form of personal security vanishes and the world loses some of its shine, if not all of it. People cease to be interesting and exciting- suddenly everyone is threatening and malicious.

I almost lost who I was.

It took a long time for me to recover joy. To find the beauty in the world and in strangers, and it was not easy. Those closest to me had to watch me teeter dangerously close to death, more than once. I hurt so many people, because I was hurting and I no longer cared if anyone else hurt as a result.

These are the things I was robbed of as a result of someone taking something from me that they had absolutely NO RIGHT to take. Something that is precious and beautiful turned dark and ugly and terrifying. All because someone decided that my consent was irrelevant. They wanted something and they took it- regardless of the fact that it was MINE to give.

"I better use some tic-tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star you can do anything.

Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything. "

When a little boy or even a man hears another man say this, and he already has the propensity or desire to take from a woman something that is not given to him, it is endorsement to do so when we do not speak up to the criminality and depravity that it is. When we allow it to be shrugged off as locker room banter. When we use the phrase JUST WORDS.

When we elect them as president of the United States of America.

Because you see, these words were never just words. They were permission, they were grandstanding about violating someone's human rights. Taking away their identity and turning them into a thing- ignoring the fact that they were a person- a mother, daughter, sister, friend, confidant, ad infinitum.

Electing Donald Trump as president exponentially raises the already horrific chances that one of my daughters will be sexually assaulted.

Every 109 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.

And every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison. 1 out of every 6 American women have been the victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

So yea, fuck your "just words."