We had no empathy, no connection, no way to say to the men who raped us: “You raped us.” We only had rage for the women who enabled it. It was like walking around naked with ankle shackles. Why. I know all the serious theories. I know the psych profiles. I know all the psychiatric terminology. But I know nothing. Most of us have this inner dialogue with ourselves and our second selves. We know at some level we could seduce anyone we wanted to. We had to somehow erase all of that – don’t talk about it, don’t write about it, take no photography. Just wipe it off the mental map. Don’t bring it up because it will put the spotlight on you as if you were the dancing bear playing out the choreography of death. It was all our fault. We should be punished. Easy to say. More likely, we would run. It was what we did. We ran from everything. We ran to nothing. We knew how to hide inside ourselves. We had no substance. We were alone. We had a history of scars. Our half-lidded eyes never broke a sweat.