She learned to walk again today

She learned to walk again today -

and this no metaphor -

paralysis just as real for being psychological.

Paralysis deep in the soul, reluctant to

let the world inside its defences.

Fighting back, ever so slowly,

incremental steps, inside and out -

I don’t mean that she and the physio

struggled up and down the parallel bars

until she walked; though that happened also,

but only as an outward consequence -

She learned to walk again today

on the inside, putting aside the fears,

the shame, the sorrows.

To walk, and not feel soiled, a dirty thing.

To hold her head up,

stare down the whisperers, the judging ones,

and smile genuinely.

To walk, dignity restored, confident.

To walk with trust again.

Walk upright, and reject the

insipid euphemisms of the politically correct.

Call it “rape” she demands,

not “sexual assault”!

For rape is raw, brutal power, not ‘sex’.

The power to terrorise, to demean -

for the thief of dignity comes

only to steal, kill and destroy,

to make her a ‘thing’ possessed, manipulated,

and no longer a person.  

She learned to walk again today,

her brokenness touched -

healed by another

who walked with her

in the valley of the shadow.

by James Gagiikwe © 2007