The Hardening of Boyhood

We received a little 7 year old girl at HEAL Africa last week. She arrived on emergency at midnight. She was brutally gang raped in her home and then shot in the vagina. She will never have babies and her pelvis is shattered. Although she is “awake,” due to severe trauma, she is completely unresponsive emotionally and psychologically. Her father had both of his arms smashed for trying to save her. Her brother is in intensive care from a gunshot to his stomach.
When I have no way to express the injustice that happens to innocent people, what I call “free verse” is my outlet. Forgive me for sharing so blatantly some of the thoughts that cross my mind, the struggle I experience in trying to make sense of the world I am faced with- the reality I have to face, but others have to live.

This free verse was inspired by this child’s experience, and my thoughts about the members of her family.

The Hardening of Boyhood

Fathers emasculated by their inability to protect their daughters and wives.
The blank stare of trauma, the troubled mind eased by its surrender
To nothingness.
The anger, the pain, the inability to change
The government, the soldiers as they range
With empty, greedy, starving eyes.

Too easy to blame them, but little would you know
Their wives have also been ravaged with that blow
The stripping of feminine privacy, purity marred for the world to see
But would you believe it?
Often children they may be.

The destruction of war is destruction by greed.
Mask it as tribal, mark it as sexist; hatred is only the seed.
Who doesn’t want more- more wealth, more power?
More ability to protect one’s own family?
Dignity vanished…

A young boy dreams of becoming a doctor;
His impoverished father hands him a gun.
“Your work is cut out for you now, boy.
No, in this hard world we live in,
I must teach you to fight for survival.
Education is for the wealthy, not for people like us.
Let go of your childish dreams, wipe your tears, and straighten your back.
Today you will learn to defend your family so that when you are married,
No man will be able to do to your wife and daughters
What those men did to your mother and sisters.

Listen and learn:
Run until you can go no further, fight for what is yours.
In this world of evil, in this war, there are no rules.
Grab what you can, eat it while you have it.
Trust no one and do not plan for a long life.
This world is not a happy place,
So wipe your tears, straighten your back and
Stop your hand from shaking
As you hold this gun.
This is your future.”

The boy tightens his grip on the cold metal,
Wipes his cheeks with his tattered shoulders,
Bites his trembling lip and with eyes still welling with tears,
Learns as he looks up into his father’s hardened eyes.