Interlude

I hope this makes you sick. I hope this makes you retch, clutching your sides until you can't stand it anymore, like I did when all of the shards of my memories pulled together into something that I could finally recognize. I hope that it makes tears force themselves out of your eyes like he forced himself down my throat. I hope that there's a lump in your throat, a lump that hurts, that you can physically feel, when you think about this.

I need you to know that i was lucky. I need you to know that I got out and I'm alive, and even though half the time I wish that they'd just killed me, I am so fucking lucky.

I need you to know that there were girls who couldn't get out, and and whether he's alive or dead, there were others there to whisk them away into captivity and hiding, girls who no one cared about when they disappeared.

I need you to know that this happened. I need you to know that as much of it as I can remember I am releasing into the mayhem and that it hurts me to do so.

I need you to embrace your fear and disgust and put it towards the people who deserve it. Not me. Not the girls. The takers. I need you to take that anger, that rage, and that confusion and put it squarely on their shoulders. I need you to push past the lump of shards in your throat and scream your indignation to the world.

No one cares about us. No one cares about us when we're small, and no one cares about us when we've grown. They could kill us all, and they do kill many of us, and no one cares. I need you to care. I need you to fix this. I need you to fix. this.

Don't pretend you didn't see this. Don't pretend that we aren't right here, in front of you, staring at you and making you feel how you have failed us, each and every one of you, sitting in front of your computer or phone, doing nothing. Inaction, apathy, lack of movement, **is an action**. It is direct aid to the takers, who know that they can walk right in front of you and snatch us out from in front of your faces without you doing a single thing.

I need you to be disgusted by this. And then I need you to do something about it.