I was 8 years old when I saw violence in live-action for the first time.

There was a black out in my neighborhood and 6 year old me thought it would be a fantastic idea to go out and do some good ol' fashion treasure hunting. It was about 8 in the evening, I remember because I had on my brand new Hello Kitty wristwatch with the tiny flashlight. My sister bought for me on my birthday with the little money she had left. I thought it was the coolest shit ever.

I was out with my friend, and let me tell you, he was the best treasure hunter ever. See, in my neighborhood, black outs were so frequent that we'd be surprised if the power was stable for a full 48 hours. My parents absolutely hated it, but me, I thought it was the best thing about the town. 

You see, at nights like this, my friend and I would always go "treasure hunting." When I asked him why we had to do it at night, he said that it was more "challenging" and "exciting" when the lights were off. We entered vacant lots, abandoned houses, and random dark places in search of anything that would be worth a story. I remember our first hunt where we found underwear, soaked in blood, stuff into a toilet inside the unkempt bathroom of the clubhouse in our neighborhood. The bathroom itself was decorated with dozens of foul drawings of women being sodomized and and beaten. Back then, we thought it was the funniest thing ever. It even featured a schoolmate of ours who got raped by a staff member. We used to laugh about it all the time.

That particular night, we found something more interesting. After a futile search of the local abandoned house, we decided to check back in the clubhouse in search of mysteries worth solving, and stories worth sharing. We took the usual steps. First, we tell our parents that we'd be in each other's house for a bit, Second, we would meet up at the end of the street where they won't see us, and third, we'd sneak off to the clubhouse. 

The clubhouse itself was old, dirty, and abandoned, which was typical for a subdivision that had terrible amenities. I whipped out my fancy Hello Kitty wristwatch flashlight and we began searching.

"Let's look at the bathroom again." He said while we were scouting the murky pool.

"I don't know...it smells in there." I whined.

"Come on, don't be such a girl."

Mind you, I am a girl.

As an attempt to impress my treasure-hunting buddy, I decided to give it a go. As we neared the bathroom, I heard someone softly crying. 

Now, as a die-hard Left 4 Dead fan as a kid, I knew exactly how to assess the situation. Is the room dark? Yes. Is the crying random? Yes. Are you in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? No. But give me a break, I was 8 and that was the perfect opportunity to showcase my zombie-fighting skills.

So we approached the door carefully. As we got closer and closer to the door, the crying became louder and sounded more strained. My companion slowly nudged the door open and there we saw the biggest mystery we never got the chance to solve. A story that should have been told to the right ears.

We saw our schoolmate. Her hands were chained to a urinal and her mouth was covered in something that looked like duct tape. Her top was ripped open and her bottoms were no where to be found, her legs were spread open, and a bald man that looked like he could be her father was viciously thrusting his hips to her.

I didn't know how to react then. I stared at the scene with my eyes wide and mouth open. I remember my friend dragging me back to our street. I remember him talking to me about something but I couldn't remember what. Then we went home and swore never to speak of it to anyone, ever.

That was the last treasure hunt we ever did.

"Momma?" I ask. "Is Santa actually real?"

She blinks before answering: "Of course darling"

She looked startled and unsure. 

That was the first time I knew something wasn't quite right.

That maybe Momma's answer wasn't all true.

But it was only the first time, so I brushed it off and forgot about it.

The news had come on after the cartoons I was watching.

Momma told me not to look, but I heard loud noises and I peeked.

It didn't look very pretty, not at all like the happily ever afters I had imagined.

That was the second time I doubted what I was being told.

That maybe I wouldn't grow up and live in a castle and be a princess.

It was a bigger crack, but it was only the second time so I didn't notice.

My friend in class had a new little brother.

I asked my teacher where babies come from and he told me to ask my parents.

After school I went up to Momma and asked "Where do babies come from?"

"They come from their mommies and daddies love" She replied.

I wasn't sure about that so I asked another question.

"Where did I come from then? Mommy-cause I don't have a Daddy."

She looked away before answering. "You came from mommy's love."

That was the third time I suspected she wasn't quite telling the truth.

I had been in school long enough to realize something didn't add up, that momma was leaving something out of what she was saying.

But she looked sad, so I just said okay.

It was the third time though, so it left me thinking.

Number four came later that year. 

I overheard some girls talking in the bathroom.

They mentioned a word that I had never heard so I decided to ask Mommy about it later.

"What's 'sex' Mommy?"

She looked so startled when I asked and whispered under her breath. "shit."

"What's 'shit' Mommy?" 

She just closed her eyes and sighed. "Grown-up words darling, grown-up words."

That was the fourth time I realized that something was being kept from me because of my age.

I didn't understand how words could only be for grown-ups. Not when I had been talking since I turned 6 months of age.

It left me confused, number four did.

Someone was knocking on the door. 

Momma was home so I answered it.

It was a strange looking man with brown hair and a bit of a beard.

"Momma" I called. "Someone's at the door"

She walked down the hall with her hair still wet and I saw her face pale as she got closer.

"Darling" She said. "Come here please"

I walked over to her because she seemed worried and sad and angry and I didn't want to get in trouble.

But she just clutched me to her and looked at the man. "You are not welcome here" She had said angrily. "You lost any right to come see me or her or us when you walked out that door ten years ago."

At this point I was even more confused. 

But, Momma shut the door in his face and I heard an engine roar and a car go down the street.

"Momma, why didn't you let him talk?"

She just pulled me closer and tighter.

I wiggle some. "Momma?" I ask again.

She just shakes her head. "Not right now darling,"

I think it was the fifth time when I knew that something had changed for real. 

When I realized that life wasn't butterflies and sunshine and rainbows. 

I had figured out answers to many of my questions over the years just by looking and listening. 

I knew that that man was important. That by what Momma had said and how he sorta looked like me that he was probably my father.

But I didn't care-I just wanted Mommy to be happy again.

So I just said ok and hugged her back.

Number five was when I knew that nothing would ever be the same.

I wasn't lost in a world of fantasy anymore. 

I was just lost in the real world.

-In sixth grade I cried because I started to develop underarm hair. I shaved it, not knowing you needed shaving cream, and it burned for a week. I haven't loved myself since.

-In seventh grade I told myself I was skipping school so I wouldn't have to change in front of the other boys. I didn't, and ended up changing in the bathroom stall for half the year. Kids made fun of me, so I stopped and changed in front of my locker. Every time, I stared st the wall and hated myself a little bit more, lost a little more dignity every time. I haven't loved myself since.

-In eighth grade I took a trip to Washington D.C. to learn more about our country. Naturally, I had to stay with another boy in the hotel rooms, because a boy and a girl cannot be trusted together. The first night I stifled sobs under the bed covers because, however little bit of intimacy it was sharing a room, I was not comfortable with it. I haven't loved myself since.

-my freshman year was a repeat of my eighth. My band took a trip to Dallas, Texas for a biannual competition. I had to stay with three other boys in a two-bed hotel room. I cried because I couldn't even confide in my female friends in private, because I wasn't even allowed to enter their rooms. I haven't loved myself since.

-my sophomore year I told my mom I was transgender- a quivering fact I'd known about myself for a while. She'd always said she'd support me no matter what, so I was taken aback when she said I was on my own because she didn't want to have anything to do with it. We never talked about that night again. I haven't loved myself since.

-this year, now a junior, I wore the guard makeup for my color guard performances, and a lot of people complimented me on how good I was at cosmetics. I know it was a little heavy and i mainly looked like a drag queen- not the girl I wanted to be- but I felt beautiful and was ecstatic.

-this year, now a junior, I know that me being transgender is not a phase. It is a fact about me- like that I have brown hair or love Taylor Swift- and it will never change. I am not open or presenting, and I'm not sure I ever will be, but i do know i will do everything in my power to help other minorities and people like me.

-today, I am a closeted trans teen. I have had to grow up a little quicker than the other kids, but it has only made me more mature and more versatile than the other kids. When we're pushed down, I am the first to stand up. When we are abused, I am the first to fight back. And when we are oppressed, I am the first one to riot.

-today, I am trans. And I will not let you walk on my rights as a human being.

oh chantel !

angry with the cloud for roasting his fur,

watching the sea cheating when he takes and never gives.

understanding why the dove was never a king,

distilling himself to please the future.

Oh chantel !

scare of height, his bathing on the roof.

lusting for blood, he has been thirsty for days.

his worms lamenting, your starving for ages.

closing his eyes yet still lived for centuries.

chantel !

uphold your glory am here to save,

the wages of today flourishes in my palms.

I control the evidence of your past and present,

your future is blessed cause your past was cursed.

chantel !

your tears travelling between time makes me guilty,

the pains are bitter but the gifts are sweeter.

be happy for you labour prophecies your victory.

chantel till i die, i will never lie..

I asked him if he still loved her.

He said no.

(Did you remember that?)

A yearbook student, a staffer of mine, told me they

"looked to be too close"

And I laughed it off, shrugged, and ignored it

(The two of them are best friends

Two sides of the same coin

Probably siblings in a past life.)

You let go of me, of my hand,

walked away from me, 

to her. 

When she was clearly walking towards us, clearly coming to see us.

(You've never let go of her for me.)

I left, on a trip

You said you loved me

Before kissing her. 

(And no one but us knows you are a liar)

We snuck fizzy boozy punch from his parents’ party bowl and then walked out into the autumn air, hand in hand. A cool breeze tossed leaves around my boots. Too old to trick or treat, but doing it anyway. He, a convincing skeleton and me a naughty cowgirl. Two other couples trailed behind us.

We rang and rang, grabbed fistfuls of candy, laughed and sang the wrong words to songs, topping each other. Rude and loud about it. The boys scuffling, the girls slapping. All of us happy. It was all a goof. Wanting to be young again at the ripe old age of fifteen.

Nobody answered the door at a three-story house, but the lights were on inside, so we hid in the bushes and spied through a crack in the window shutter, six of us huddled into too small a space behind the hedging. We shoved and giggled and finally found a spot to stack up. So we saw a fat middle-aged man leading an elegantly dressed blowup doll in a pattern on the plush carpet. A waltz maybe? We gasped, hands over our mouths, stifling hilarious snorts, but then grew quiet and serious one by one as we watched the intricate turns, the twists, the dip. He, so intense and she, well, don’t they always seem surprised? The creepiness stole over all of us and we stood there staring, quieted, horrified.

Wanting out of the Twilight Zone dreary, I grabbed his hand and we took flight. We ran hard and far. Away from the sad man and his doll. Away from our friends. We stopped, hunched over, hands on knees, panting and spilling laugh tears from the outer corners of our eyes. Glad to be alone.

It was a clearing where the leaves had not fallen. The grass was hanging on to green. The night was warmer just there and the moon so large, it seemed lofted low, staged just for us. So bright it blotted the stars. He laid down with one arm outstretched, asking. And he looked at me with those clear yellow eyes, searching my face. As if boneless, I collapsed onto him. I was warm, you understand? Whether from the dizzy silly escape or because he was just what I wanted in that moment, I was flushed, heat radiating from my chest to my eyes and back down. All the way down.

And we lay there, me with my head on his bony chest, his face in my long hair until he asked me from painted skeleton lips, whispered yet sweetly formal, whether he could and I said yes. Because we were alone. All around us on every side street there were kids and dogs and parents and flashlights, cars and doorbells and laughing, but somehow we had escaped and were isolated, impenetrable, unpredictably alone. We couldn’t hear them or see them. Just our hot breaths, closer to each other than we had ever been, than I’d ever been with any boy. Just that, the unlikely green grass underneath me and the moon so large at my back.

He was everything I wanted just then and maybe I was too. I don’t know because he didn’t say anything. My skin was dark and his so very white in the moonlight. He shook, but I did not. And it was too cautious, painfully slow, in fits and starts, silly and tender.

And when it was done the spell broke all at once. I could hear cars and kids again, the moon sped away from us and chilly air filled the gap. We pulled clothes on, shivering, and twisted them back into their original shape or close enough. We walked, hand in hand, through a night darker than it had been before. Back to his home. And his parents, too drunk to notice how different we were. It was magic. It was over. It was what I wanted.

She giggles, taking me by the hand and leading me back towards her room.

"Your parents," I murmur, casting quick glances down the hall.

One of her hands entangles itself in my long, dark hair. The other is trailing down the small of my back, occasionally pausing just below the waist of my skirt. "They won't be home for hours."

She nudges me down onto her bed, a twin sized she's had since she was in middle school. Her lips are at my ear, and I tilt my head back, my lips parting of their own accord. "God, I love you," she whispers, in a voice so soft yet fiery electricity runs down my spine.

Her hands are everywhere, touching me, making me feel as I never have before. I make a trail with my lips down, down down. The room blurs together. Her loose blonde hair, her sly grins, making the world disappear. Afterwards, we just lie there, hands intertwined, sprawled across her floral bedspread. There's no need for talk. The finality of our act fills the space far better than words could.

I don't notice the sound of the front door crashing open at first, I'm in such a daze. Then it all registers. Her father's come home. Before I can scramble about in search of my blouse and skirt, his voice calls down the hall.

"Ginny? Where the hell are you!?" His voice is loud and bellowing. I can tell he's been drinking again.

"One second dad!" she calls. "Don't come... in yet." She trails off as the door flies open. Her father stands, a hulking figure in the door frame, bottle in hand.

His eyes go wide, more with anger than surprise. "Ginny, get out of the house."

Her hand touches my shoulder. "No, daddy, you don't understand."

"I understand well enough," his words slur together, and the bottle shatters against the wall as he swings his fist at nothing in particular. "You commit this abomination in my house and have the nerve to tell me I don't understand? Get out. Get out before I throw you out."

She stands, her fist clenched and shaking at her side, and for a moment I think she'll defend me, but she bows her head. "Yes, daddy."

I watch her leave, knowing all hope of reasoning with this man is gone. I glance toward the window, waiting for an opening to make an escape. Her father walks up to me and places an arm around my shoulder. I jerk back at the sudden contact.

"We're going to take a little drive, you and me."

"That's very kind of you, sir, really, but I ought to be heading home. My mother's just coming home from work and..."

The arm tightens, so it's almost squeezed around my neck. "I wasn't asking a question."

I gasp for breath as he drags me out towards his old rusted pick up. Ginny is no where to be seen as we pass through the living room and outside. She knows how to make herself scarce.

I don't notice the drive, only that it took hours and that the scenery blurred. I'm tempted to leap out of the moving vehicle, but up until we reach the lake, I don't think he'll actually do it. He pulls out a handgun and points it at me.

"Get out of the truck." His voice is low and growling.

My eyes go wide. "Let's think this through here. We didn't mean anything by it."

"She didn't. I know my little girl didn't. Now get out of the damn car!"

I open the door slowly and step out onto the bank. I realize for once, there's no one at the lake. I've never been here in the dark. He's trembling now, from the rage or from the alcohol, I don't know.

"You did this. You made her like this!" his shouts echo through the empty forest.

"She's always been like this. You just didn't notice."

"Shut up! Shut up!" He waves his gun around wildly, but I have to say my piece. For her.

"Pull yourself together and leave her alone! Let her make her own choices!"

He walks toward me and presses the cold metal against my forehead. "I told you to shut your damn trap."

"Maybe she fell in love with me because no one else in her life would love her," I whisper, my voice shaking in fear.

The sound is what gets me, not the pain, not the bullet tearing through my brain, not the dirt shoveled over me six feet under, not the years of enclosure in a thin wooden coffin.

If innocence were a river, then I was never allowed to go swimming. I was pulled back by the hair before I ever had a chance to dive in. I never felt the icy water kiss my burning flesh. 

Unable to be pulled from depths I was never allowed to venture into, I was confined to the beach. Only able to view the kids who played jubilantly in the shallows. I often imagined what it would be like to be one of them, but I never got the chance to properly imagine the freedom they were afforded. My mind would be brought back to more horrific things. More realistic things. 

As we walked home I would glance back at the beach until it left my sight, and as the sun set I would listen as loving parents called out to their children, interrupting their blissful foolishness to notify them that it was their turn to go home. 

If innocence were a household, I was never invited inside. I was always left standing on the doormat. That welcome mat would be the closest that I would ever get to being invited into a place so comfortable. I would never feel the warmth of the fireplace that burned inside, and the flavor of the food that had been cooking all evening would never touch my tongue. 

I often looked through the window and watched children eat with their families, and talk about the trivial things that they found exciting, and I would imagine what it was that they said before being pulled away from the window by my hair. At my own house there was no food as reality was forced down my throat. 

If innocence were a person, I never got to meet her. She was a kind lady, and I gazed dreamily as she interacted with the other children that I saw. I would watch as she read stories to those children, and I would feel envy when she laughed at the jokes they told. 

When I passed by her, I would wave and I would pull a smile back across my face, but of all the times I saw her, she never noticed me. I would turn my head to look behind me as she walked passed. I would watch her wave to the child that walked behind me before having my head twisted back around, the grip of a firm hand pulling at my hair. 

I would listen to the child's laughter, and then her own as we walked in the opposite direction. I looked up at the face to which the hand that held mine belonged, but no smile was afforded to me, no attention at all.  

One day, I saw her again, though. This time the interaction I saw her partaking in wasn't as joyful as I had come to expect. She was with a young, weeping child and as I walked by I heard her comforting him. But the words she uttered were not meant to benefit the boy, as every single syllable that left her mouth had been a lie. 

Bully no more

Whose the blame for my pain

Why should I stay in the game

Even my feelings and emotions are at each other's throats

Whose the blame for my pain

Why should I stay in the game

No matter where I walk it rains

Whose the blame for my pain

Why should I stay in the game

When my name brings you shame

You tend to make me look strange

I'm the only human with horns

I know you said your sorry

But everyday hurts even more

You make me apologize as if I'm the blame

You stop hinting that you want me dead

Now you just throw it in my face

Why should I stay in the game

Just knowing i would be the blame

Only make sense to blow my brain

At least the pain will stop

And no one would be able to point the finger

Because my finger be on the trigger

All I ever wanted was to be loved

But it's abuse that gives me the most hugs

I'm tired of alcohol

I'm tired of the hospital

Why I can't I be a child that has fun

Instead of living in a wheelchair

Or standing on crunches

I guess its only one way to change

Trust me I see you in hell

But don't forget the hell you brought me everyday

I don't want to go this way

But it's either me or you

I can't allow you to take my life away.

It's in the everyday little things—

Hiding her lighters at the age of five

Waiting alone in the car

while she tried to score

Stealing her drugs and dealing them

so you can buy something to eat

Lying to the social workers

Fearing the man you're

supposed to look up to

Not telling his girlfriend

about the other two

Hating it when the school bell rang

knowing you had nowhere

else to go but home

Switching roles with the thirty-two year old

Becoming their marionette

to pay the price for her mistakes

Knowing you're being paid in blood

and not letting it faze you

Being a freshman and needing

the love of a twenty-three year old

Being twenty-one and

it not being special

because you've been drinking

the nightmares away for three years

Telling yourself to

pour yourself a drink

put on some lipstick

and pull yourself together—

You doing just that

every morning before work

Being robbed of a childhood—

You can't lose what you never had