The Moment

The following poem was written by a Class of 2025 cadet and read at the 2023 “Take Back the Night” event at USAFA. For more information on the “Take Back the Night” event, including photos, please click here. If you are a victim of sexual violence and wish to access support and help, please call the USAFA SAPR Hotline at 719-333-7272.

The U.S. Air Force Academy Sexual Assault Prevention and Response table awaits cadets entering the Arnold Hall Ballroom for Take Back the Night Oct. 24, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Trevor Cokley)

I call this “The Moment.”

There are moments in everyone’s life where you feel powerless.

There are moments where you feel this sort of out-of-body experience.

There are moments where it feels like you have zero control over your life.

But then there is THE Moment.

The moment that THEY take away your voice.

The moment that THEY act with zero thought of you as a human being.

The moment that THEY strip you of any power.

The moment that THEY rape you.

The Moment.

The moment when your life changes. You change.

My moment stunned me with silence. Not only being incapable of moving or physically running away but incapable of believing what was happening. I was stuck. Physically and mentally. Yet it happened. To me. And it happens to more people than you think.

After someone experiences “The Moment,” they are not the same nor will they ever be.

I wasn’t.

Why?

Because the feeling of shame and regret is unbearable, where you always feel like it was your fault, or you were in the wrong, or you deserved it. Over time you begin to slowly convince yourself that it was your fault. You never stop asking if you brought this on yourself?

Because the relentless fear that swallows you everywhere you go leaving a gut feeling every time you walk into a store alone, every time you walk in the dark from the parking lot to inside carrying your keys in your hand, every time you notice someone is walking behind you just a little too close for a little too long.

Because you wonder if you will ever be able to trust someone again. If you will ever be able to be alone with another man, another friend, another person you thought you could trust. Or are they all the fucking same.

Because you wonder if you will ever be able to counter your tremendous fear with your own faith. If it will be enough. If you are strong enough to counter the thoughts in your head that continue to run in never-ending loops reminding you of the moment. Never-ending loops that keep you up at night with the inability to get a good night’s sleep, leaving you exhausted day after day, night after night. Because you wonder if you will ever be able to just turn your thoughts off.

Because it feels like no one will ever understand how you felt, how you feel, how you will always feel. Because it feels like you are alone. Because the horror of every second you

experienced is ingrained in your brain. Every second their hands ran across your body. Every second their voice vibrated through your ears. Every second you felt their breath against your cold shivering skin. Every second you tried to speak but choked on your own breath.

Because you feel broken, like no one can fix you. No one gets you. No one understands the feeling of being disgusted with your own body. No one understands the feeling of your skin crawling from the unwanted touch of someone you thought you could trust. Showering 4 times a day for weeks on end just to forget the feeling of him on you. No one understands how it feels to think of yourself as property. Used by someone. Abused by someone. No one understands feeling like an object. Like you are worth nothing. Like you are nothing.

Because you tell yourself that if you share your story with those in your life, that you are burdening them. That sharing your story is a sign of weakness. A symbol of what broke you. What continues to break you. That every time you cry, it is as if you are a broken record repeating and reliving this horrible thing that happened to you and you are just bothering the world with your problems.

Because it broke my heart the moment, I told my father that his little girl had been raped. Telling him that he failed to protect me. Telling him I was no longer the innocent little girl with pig tails and flip flops that he taught to ride a bike. Telling him I was no longer the innocent little girl that he took to meet the princesses at Disney World. Watching him now look at me like a victim, someone who had been hurt, broken.

But we’re not victims. We’re survivors.

I am a survivor.

Why?

Because I wake up every day and choose to keep trying. To keep fighting.

Because I walk around with a smile on my face to remind myself, no, to convince myself, and others that there actually is joy in life.

Because when I can’t sleep, I know that tomorrow will eventually come, and it will be a new day.

Because even when someone grabs my wrist the wrong way by accident, just to get my attention but it throws me back to that scared girl pinned down and trapped in a car, that I can close my eyes and breathe and know that I am no longer that scared, silenced trapped girl.

Because I know I can take the power back. I can take the power back into MY hands. I can use my voice. I can share my story. And I can do my damn best to make sure that this doesn’t happen to someone else.

Because even when it feels like I am broken, I am a burden, I am unlovable, I am never going to be “normal,” I remind myself that there are good people in this world, good people in my life that will remind me otherwise. And that I am not alone. That I am not the only one feeling this way.

As survivors, we are all so different, yet we are all so much the same.

We fight.

So… For those who are supporters. Supporters for the survivors.

When we can’t sleep.

When we can’t answer.

When we are afraid.

When we feel alone.

When we feel unsafe.

When we can’t proceed.

Just STOP.

Because we all know that THEY didn’t.

Stop and listen because…

What happened to us…

It can’t be undone.

It can’t be taken back.

Just be there.

Believe us.

Listen to us.

And for the survivors.

The Moment does not define you.

The Moment does not lay out the rest of your story as a victim.

The Moment made you a survivor.

A fighter.

So, keep fighting.

Keep fighting with me.

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