Don't become a statistic

"I know how bad the odds are for girls like me.

"We wait to be rescued, but for whatever reason, no one comes. We figure that if no one protects us then we must not be worth protecting so we become prey are and easily picked off. Our wounded, kicked-puppy gazes attract sly predators and we sell ourselves for clearance sale prices, mistaking screwing for caring.

"We binge, purge, sleep around. We drink too much and get too high, anything to blot out the past. We accept and endure beatings and humiliations because our fathers, our uncles and our mother's twisted boyfriends said they loved us, too, right before they broke our bones and tore our tissue, right before they made us receive them.

"We have babies because we want them to love us, to make us important, but they only make us tired and far and stinking of spit up because they're babies, not saviors. Their fathers leave us, sick of crap and sour milk, sweatpants and tears.

"But the babies need all of us, only there isn't anything left to give because we based our worth on the lowlifes who knocked us up and around."

-Laura Wiess, Such a Pretty Girl