Spent the last few minutes watching Michelle Knight’s statement to the court, prior to the sentencing of Ariel Castro.
Of the three women held by Castro, Knight suffered the most: She had a 2 1/2 year old son, and endured five forced miscarriages from Castro’s beatings (Her treatment was markedly worse than the treatment of the other two).
Castro forced her to assist Amanda Berry to deliver her child.
Here’s the opening of a piece self wrote several years ago, shortly after hearing the news that Jaycee Lee Dugard had escaped her captor. It was published in Phoebe, Spring 2012.
When the news about Dugard first broke, self was so tremendously moved. The piece practically wrote itself.
All the Missing
for Jaycee Lee Dugard
They’re alive, all of them.
One day they’ll present, alive and well.
They’ll be older; a few might even have their first grey hairs.
They’ll come out of tents or basements or caves or wherever it is they’ve been kept, all these years.
Their names are Ilena, Michaela, Polly, Sandra.
Some are blonde. Some are brunette. Some are redheads.
Some have braces. A few have freckles.
The parents stand on street corners. They organize search teams.
They hand out photographs. They implore complete strangers: “Please, please.”
The little girls’ hair is always neatly combed, their eyes are bright. Most of them smile. A few seem self-conscious. These are school photos, therefore posed.
Not all of them are pretty.
Now it’s summer. School’s out, the kids are everywhere, giddy with excitement.
That’s not all of it, but self thinks people should just go over to Phoebe and show their support for the journal by reading what’s available on the site.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
