There are many shattering losses due to childhood sexual abuse and the lingering ramifications are substantial. One in particular is difficult to talk about, sexual intimacy in a loving relationship. That was stolen from me and I mourn what was lost.

When a child loves and trusts her brother (substitute father, uncle, mother, etc.), the closeness, warmth, and time spent together is not sexual. A hug is benign, just a hug, filled with warmth and love. That’s it. And when she gets older, perhaps adolescence, she might feel a twinge of her sexuality at her first kiss with a boy she likes her own age.

Then she’s a teenager and it’s said the hormones take over, not me. I was scared and frozen when my boyfriend tried to touch me in any sexual way. But this is when one explores happily, both boy and girl enjoying the closeness and exploration.

Never been good at receiving, prefer to give, in all things …

I gave you everything I had left, it wasn’t much, a persistent hole, had formed long ago and I was seeping out.

I look whole, but that’s just mythology. I may outwardly appear, to stand upright, but in truth I sag, even in wind.

If I had more I would have given it. You believed I did, as many before you did. I call that the capture of delusion, you see in me, what you want to see, not who is actually standing there.

And if I were a pirate, I’d have a wooden leg and a parrot. If I were a dragon, well hell, I’d be a dragon (and yes, I really want to be a dragon).

The doctor said I had a flabby heart, and still you believe me an angel. But angels play the lyre…