A Heart Wish…

I remember my first love, a neighborhood boy named Kaylove. He was seven or eight years old, lived next door, and let me join in his self-discovery of my new neighborhood. Being a girl was not an opportunity for him to explore what made women different from men. He was a friend who wanted to share his experiences. He was better than my brother in that way. He was kind to me and liked to share his knowledge of his community.

I loved him.

It was pure romantic love of enjoying his company, watching his eyes change color as the light hit them, sharing knowledge, and playing games of our imagination. Wanting to kiss him was a delightful heart wish that I never did. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I was seven, and being an adult was not something I wanted to rush. Perhaps it was the teasing people did afterward when I joyfully gushed about him. But I dreamed of kissing him when I was old enough to consider teen things like going to the prom with him in a decade.

Sadly, he moved before I turned eight.

And the full moon of his last day, I wept. I wished on that moon to let me love again. Let me find him, find this so I can give him my first kiss as I wanted. In the pure love of my seven-year-old person, I wished for a love like this.

In the afterglow of love in this purest eros, I turned to the other boys in my community for possible friendship. And sensing the joy in feminine I emulate, the boys acted like hounds on the scent. I was ripe. I was ready. It did not take long for the boys to become predatory. My second sexual assault happened with the boy across the street who invited me to play “show me” in the corner of his backyard. You have been conditioned to say I should know better. Well, we were seven or eight, and I was lonely child doing something to make friends with people. I accepted what I did, showed him to have access to any friend. I submitted to his sexual exploration of my body. Because, that is what comes with having male friends, right?

I will never truly understand what the fascination with one’s penis is about. I suspect being able to explore that feel-good tingle as soon as you come out partnered with the sexual repression and avoidance dance from parents, you are going to do things that are fucked up.

This show me and I show you session evolved into a touching relationship exchange. We eventually got caught.

I was in his living room, trying to enjoy the perks of his friendship- cable- and he was going higher and higher up my skirt, one made by my mother, touching my butt and trying to touch my vagina. At the same time, I detached from my body and gave him what he wanted, hoping he would stop so I can watch whatever was on the idiot box. I remain incredibly grateful his sister saw us over the kitchen block.

I was glad to have it end as I knew it was wrong to submit to this, and it wasn’t the friendship I wanted. My parents cut off my play with this neighbor, thankfully. As an adult and what I know about date rape, it is this kind of encounter that would have conditioned me to accept my first sexual encounter similarly.

My parents did not know what to do except to stop us from hanging around each other. The neighbors’ parents were pissed off as well because how could their boy be like this, clearly it was me being fresh, letting him up my dress. I saw the fear in my mother’s eyes for the fourth time in my young life. She moved into this middle-class neighborhood, thinking I would be safe from is this, and she was wrong. But she is another story.

After all this, I was left alone with the friends in my head and on the page. My neighborhood population was boy-dominate, and I had enough with attempting to make friendships in that space. The lone female in my age range was not interested in being a friend with anyone younger than her. It was a toss-up if I wanted to make friends with boys to have human interaction or protect myself from the predators and play with no one. I was nine years old, a band-aid for a D.O.A. marriage, and for the first time I thought, death would be a great escape. I never attempted it. But it was an option I flirted with for the following years.

The moon offered another option.

It was a blessing/curse that my room had the double windows as I would have opted to jump to my freedom from that love-starved home. I did not want to survive the fall and face that anger and the talk of how much my hospital stay would cost. In a fit of fury that I would consider the hassle over myself, I asked that moon to take my heart so I don’t give in just because people are terrible. I don’t recall the entire experience now as I have worshiped many a moon since then. But it was the first time I felt warm under its light. And my daydreams became my haven.

It also helped that I start mentally building boundaries and accepting my darkest fantasies. Because if I am not wanted for me, I would want myself.

It was the start of my divine protection. It was the start of my self-acceptance. It was the start of my life choices that would guide me to a divine love practice.

But that is another essay.