Is it weird to look up to someone younger than you?

     I look at smiling pictures of my little cousin and think, "Wow, I wish I could smile so happily." But then I remember anyone can put on a fake smile in a picture and make it seem real. I remember that we've been through the same experience. I remember being four years old and getting molested for the first time. I remember her telling me she had been getting molested by the same man. Only difference was he lived in her garage and she was two years younger than me. Then I think, maybe she's forgotten about it. Maybe she received therapy, maybe she found a way to deal with it, maybe she was young enough to be able to turn it into a simple nightmare that was never reality.
     Is it weird to look up to someone younger than you? When I was in forth grade and she was entering second grade she finally told her parents what had been happening. When I was asked if it ever happened to me my body reacted on its own embarrassment and denied any such claims. It might have been the fact that my mother asked me while washing the dishes and my brother standing next to her or maybe it wasn't. But I regret it because maybe it I had admitted it, if I had told someone, anyone, I wouldn't feel as disgusting and perverted as I do now. Maybe if I had always admitted everything that has ever happened to me I wouldn't feel the need to cut myself. Maybe if I told my mom that five different guys molested me at different times I wouldn't suffer from depression.
     But in this life maybe isn't good enough and it doesn't get you anywhere. Still I can't bring myself to acknowledge my past and admit it. Not to anyone besides the cousin I haven't seen since I was 10 in the fifth grade. The only one to ever know my secret will be her and her alone.
 

As a child

Dismembered on the inside

smiling on the outside.

I still hear my cries

from when my father hit my mom.

The slap still echos

through the valleys of my mind.

The first act of violence

I've ever been scared of.

As a child of nine

dealing with the pain

of losing a father

who never cared

being reminded

your just like him

they turn their back

and say bad things.

Does this mean

I'm as bad as him?

As a child of ten I had no way

to deal with the pain.

Going against my family

and going insane.

Acting like an angel

with good grades.

While lying to my mother

and going to a club.

Having a boyfriend

and going to his house.

As a child of eleven

I discovered sharp objects.

Feelings tearing away

from the inside out.

Taking the razor

and dragging it

across my wrist.

They took away the pain

of being me.

As a child of twelve

I discovered hot metal objects.

Placing them against my skin

feeling the tear down my cheek.

The discolored skin

of being burned

by a flat iron.

It eliminated the pain.

As a teen of fourteen

I discovered my mother was a liar.

She promised never to get married.

She doesn't even love him.

Yet here I am

being torn away

from my mother

and left with my grandmother

like a piece of luggage.

She didn't even care.

I continued with my escapes.

As a teen of fifteen

I discovered something

I don't very much like

my family.

No one noticed

when I started to change.

The black pants and shirts.

The sudden want of darkness and cold.

Long sleeves in the middle of summer.

No skin shown when it's 100 degrees.

No one ever noticed

how much pain I hid.

No one ever cared

to undo the mask

that hid my pain.

No one ever cared

enough to make me change.

So I lie here in my grave.

At the age of sixteen

because I discovered

I never meant a thing.