By my twenty-sixth birthday, I wanted more than anything to live. I was one year old, an infant born out of a corpse, still with the smell of death on her, but hating death. This year I am six years old, and the anguish of my own long and dreadful dying comes back to haunt me. But this year, for the first time, I do more than tremble from the fear that even memory brings, I do more than grieve. This year, I sit at my desk and write.
Rape is very terrible.
I have been raped and I have talked with hundreds of women who have been raped. Rape is an experience that pollutes one's life. But it is an experience that is contained within the boundaries of one's own life. In the end, one's life is larger. Assault by a stranger or within a relationship is very terrible.