The Auction of Innocence

There was no gavel, no crowd to witness the transaction-

just a little girl, broken and hollowed,

learning too soon that love had sharp edges.

He was my father, the one meant to shield,

but his hands were storms,

and his words, knives.

In the aftermath, I found myself at the altar of self-destruction,

offering what little remained of me.

My body became currency in an unwinnable war,

a temple I defiled because someone else taught me how.

My soul was not sold in one grand gesture,

but in pieces, chipped away

with every harmful choice

I believed I deserved.

The scars on my skin were maps of pain,

and the searing ache in my chest

was a reminder that I could not outrun my past.

I danced with strangers in darkened rooms,

seeking absolution in their touch

but finding only more voids to fill.

It’s easy to sink into the lies they plant in you:

You are nothing. You are wrong. You are unworthy.

I became both victim and assailant,

hurting myself to quiet the echoes of his harm.

I blamed the little girl inside me for surviving

instead of the man who stole her safety.

But somewhere in the ashes, I found a whisper-

that my body is more than a graveyard of shame.

a faint, persistent voice calling me home.

It told me that my worth was never his to destroy,

That my soul, bruised and fractured,

still belongs to me.

Healing doesn’t come like a flood;

it trickles in, drop by drop,

as I reclaim each part of myself he tried to erase.

I write these words not as a victim,

but as a survivor who is learning to live

without chains.

This is not a redemption story.

It’s a promise-

to that little girl,

to the woman I’ve become,

and to anyone still clawing their way out of the darkness.

You are not what they did to you.

You are not the harm you’ve done to yourself.

You are the light fighting its way through the cracks.

And that light is enough.

B 🤍

Originally published at http://thepedophilehuntress.com on December 20, 2024.