David's Tale - by Ayanfe Adeogun

Like...I swear it's madPeople hold things for years, things you wouldn't even know aboutUntil you sit them down and tell them you're willing to hear them outAnd then they start telling you things that leave a deep and personal scarIt's mad, when they tell you stories that hit you so hard that you start feeling so sadThanking God, and being grateful for life, And at the same time so sober cos then you realize the things that are happening all aroundThings that could just have easily happened to you and I Like...It's not that I've known him for the longest timeHe's a quite a bit older so I see him as an oldest brotherCos he's come through for me, helped me so many times than I can countTalking to me advising me, asking me about my plans for my futureAnd all of the things I hope to accomplish, telling me about life,About his, random conversations we had on random nightsAnd We were sitting, one night like always did Talking about the same things we always did. He wasn't responding like he always did. Something was wrong, so I asked him what's wrong like I always did.Usually he'd shrug it off like he always did, But he was feeling different tonight... so he started telling me this story of a little kidAnd how one night changed everything He was eight, lived with his parents inside a small houseDaddy was quite the brother, so he lived with some of his auntsAnd he was close with them, liked playing with them,Along with all his older siblings, it was a house filled with laughsAnd he was the lastborn so he was the apple of everyone's eyeAnd for a while things were niceHe didn't even know when things changed, he was still a childA couple of years later, he realizedBut it was too late, so he didn't tell anyone It was a random morning in the middle of OctoberHe had just gotten back from school,All he wanted to do was watch his cartoon,Then finish up with the assignment his mom forced him to doSleep, and once again end up in schoolNothing too fancy, butOn this particular night, his parents weren't aroundSiblings were way older, so they're already in uni, and staying on campusIt was just him and his auntUnfortunately, it was just him and his aunt She helped him with his assignmentThey finished it quickly, cos she answered the questioned for himAnd she said she had a little surprise for himAnd she led him to her roomTelling him anything but the truthShe said she had a new toy for him to play withNaïve little kid that he was he believed itI wish I could go back and give him a warningShe doesn't have a new toy, she wants to play with yoursBut I couldn't so he went into the roomHis aunt started doing things he'd never see her doHe was touched in ways he couldn't explainShe did things to him that no one ever didAnd his parents were gone for a weekSo every single night when it was time for him to sleepHe spent it with his aunt, he couldn't sleep alone, he was just a kidAnd so that's how she had her way with himShe didn't care that he was just a kid Growing up, David was wired to hate womenOne of them hurt him, so all of them were evilIt's fucked, that type of thinking from a ten year old boyBut it's just cos he had seen one of the evils of the worldAnd he had to have a lot of help, to help destroy that shift in his mentalityTalks with a therapist, cos he was trying to forgive the rapistTelling his mom and dad the secrets he kept hidden When he told me all these things, I didn't know when my heart started to beatI was feeling so sad for him, but he didn't want my sympathySo I just saw with him, listening to the silence that seemed to comfort himHe said, it's a thing of the pastSomething he thought he'd forgotten aboutBut sometimes it'd manage to creep inside his lifeAnd he'd remember one of the worst weeks of his lifeAnd that really made me sad And there are other children like him,Betrayed by the people who are supposed to look out for themProtect them, but they end up being the dangerImagine being with your uncle or aunt being a dangerSomeone you've known all your life doing you worse than you'd expect from a strangerIt fills my heart with so much angerWhen I hear someone tell me they were abused as a childIt's happening everywhere, it could be right under your noseUnder the same roof, inside one of your roomsProtect your David, and look out for himCause nobody deserves do go through that as a kid

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