They Ask the Wrong Questions

They never ask, "What happened to you?" Instead, They hand survivors an interrogation disguised as concern. "Why were you there?" "What did you expect?" "Why didn't you leave?" Questions thrown like stones, as if survival is something That should make sense to people who have never had to fight for it. They study the choices I made while drowning instead of asking who pushed me into the water. I wasn't searching for danger. I was searching for somewhere That didn't hurt. When my mind was unraveling, when every breakdown felt like another wave pulling me under, I skipped school. Not because I hated learning. but because I couldn't breathe inside the life I had been given. Some days I took the bus to my boyfriend's house. Other days, I met strangers online because strangers felt kinder than the silence waiting for me at home. I wasn't wild. I wasn't reckless. I was a child trying to outrun the pain that kept finding me. There is a difference. One the world rarely cares to learn. Then came another kind of darkness. Hands that ignored my "no." Eyes that saw my vulnerability as an invitation. People who stole more than my sense of safety. They stole trust. They stole innocence. They stole the version of me that believed Adults would protect children. And when it was over, The questions began. "Why didn't you fight?" "Why would you meet someone you didn't know?" "Why didn't you just go home?" No one asked Why a child believed strangers were safer than home. No one asked Why home didn't feel like somewhere I wanted to return to. No one asked Why a little girl was carrying burdens too heavy for her small shoulders. Instead, they measured my trauma against the decisions I made trying to survive it. I spent years believing their questions were somehow my answers. Believing that if I had chosen differently, I wouldn't have been hurt. But healing has taught me something their judgment never could. The blame was never mine to carry. It belonged to the people who mistook my pain for permission. So today, I am putting it down. I will no longer apologize for surviving. I will no longer explain why I was drowning to people who refuse to acknowledge the storm. I write for the little girl who believed she deserved every terrible thing that happened to her. She didn't. I didn't. We didn't. Death once sounded like peace. Today, I choose something braver. I choose to live. To write. To remember. To speak. Because every poem I write is another question returned to the world. Not, "Why was I there?" But, "Why are we still asking survivors to explain their survival instead of asking why they needed to survive in the first place?"