Intuition

Overwhelming dread

a quivering line

on the edge of my vision

fine hairs moving at will

vomitous tension

burned out and rebuilt

over and over again

day in and day out

like waves

rolling over an ocean

of dry dead blades

constant vibrant blackness

radiating from my pores

my eyes shining in the dark

walking through like noon time

every time lips part

only puffs of smoke are emitted

even in my despair

I tried to sound the warning

it was for naught

the hour far too late

nothing left of me to save

explosion imminent

no one but me ever

heard my plea

now, I walk alone

through a dried-up fetid sea

Searching the rushing sheaves

for any non-consumed identity

K.B. Silver

When I read the book Watership Down in the second grade, my life wasn’t blasted wide open. The fetid rot destroying my family from the inside wasn’t laid bare. However, I did connect with Fiver. I understood the pain and the plight of knowing something is terribly wrong, but because of youth or the inability to vocalize it, the correct steps aren’t taken in time. In fact, I was constantly being questioned and ignored, because if I couldn't come up with a snap explanation, then I was lying. Every single word I said as a child was accused of being and examined for lies.

Or worse yet, action is organized, but it falls short of helping anyone. Failure, pain, and death still overtake the hardworking and good; these issues are ones that we all have to come to terms with. Watership Down is an excellent book to help young readers connect with these messages. It is shocking how many people still seem to have the opinion that if something bad happens to you, you deserve it, even towards children.

Secondarily, I have long had a serious issue with the word “intuition.” I see it as a highly gendered word, and one that both men and women use to discount real information processing abilities we just can't explain fully. Especially ignoring these feelings in children is more than hypocritical; it's dangerous. Like Fiver's community of rabbits whose warren gets destroyed, families and even entire communities are being destroyed by secret crimes kept hidden on purpose.

When you tell children over and over to let adults know when anyone makes them “feel uncomfortable,” but require mountains of evidence and trial-like explanations of how they came to the conclusion that people are “making them feel uncomfortable,” it is detrimental to how our society is set up and destroys trust between children and adults. No one wants to be abused AND interrogated on top of it, then told they didn't have good enough answers to get the help they desperately need.

I think it has become clear to everyone in the last few months why even adults don't come forward with the truth of their abuse. My family said, of course, we believe you, because if they hadn't said so, they would look bad, and my mother could never look bad, but no matter what had happened to me, it was called into question. My memory, broken from the abuse, was used against me.

That person? Not who did it. That action? Never taken. They didn't believe at all. Any time I wanted to go to the police, that wasn't going to be allowed, and we moved; sometimes across town, sometimes across the country. Now that I realize my mother knew the whole time and helped coordinate the abuse, my family's reaction makes a lot more sense. A child, especially, is not equipped to prove the guilt of an offender. That is supposed to be the job of the police, even if they have taken up the cause of the abusers.