Starting from a very young age way before I went to preschool my brothers would hit us.
My parents knew about this but didn’t do anything about it.
They didn’t want to.

I don’t talk to them much.

Every day we would be forced to spend time with my brothers.
Because my parent basically didn’t give a fuck about us.
They only needed us for the government money because they couldn’t work.
They kept popping out babies and leaving them to us to take care of them.

We were taught by our brothers to not make noise.
To not ask for anything.

We were taught how to sit “properly”.
With our backs straight hands on our laps and heads down.

If we were to cry, then the abuse would get worse.

We were taught how to “be and act” like girls.
They were very sexist because of all the stereotype Asian shit was told to them by our dad.

We were taught to be silent because my brothers hated noise and because “girls aren’t supposed to talk, they’re there to sit quietly and look pretty”.

Every day I would sit there on the couch trying not to sleep. Trying not to cry. Trying to think of anything.

I would sit there and stare at my hands.
Blankly.

But every day it would be like that.

The house would be deathly quiet while my brothers would play their PSPs and other games.

And we would just sit there looking at our hands.

Mindless days. Doing nothing.

When I would get restless I would have to dig my nails near my wrist until it was bleeding kind of when they weren’t looking.

I always had the urge to run or just walk around but I would bite the inside of my mouth, dig in my skin, and talk myself into not doing anything unless I wanted to get beat.

I was getting too fidgety one day and my brother say.

That day my brother knocked out one of my tooth.

I was bleeding, but I just swallowed all the blood and made sure they didn’t see my broken tooth.

Mindless day. I felt like a doll. Sitting there doing nothing. Looking at nothing. Being nothing.

So, you get the drift.

So, when my second youngest brother raped me I didn’t know what to do.

If I told my parents, I knew for a fact they wouldn’t even tell the police.
They would ask if he did it and he would say no.
Then they would just ignore what I said and call me a liar.
And the abuse would get worse and worse.

There was nobody I could talk to. I felt intimidated by the teachers. I was thinking of calling the cops and telling them what goes on, but I kept thinking,” If my own parents didn’t believe me then why would they?”

One time when we went to our cousin’s house they noticed the bruises. We snitched to them that it was our brothers.

They couldn’t do anything. They knew that the parents would choose to believe the sons over us and all of us were only girls.

So, it was left alone, and they would give us pity stares when they noticed new bruises.

I hadn’t told them about the rapes.

I knew my second youngest brother only touched me and only one other sister.

He had started molesting the both of us when I was in preschool. I think she walked in on him touching me in one of my hazy memories. And after that he started touching her too.

They had a brother I didn’t like but was forced to act like I liked him.

So, no one did anything.

Our closest cousins knew about the physical abuse, but they didn’t do anything.

They didn’t even call the cops.

So, our hope was gone, and it was back to the mindless days.

I still wonder sometimes why they didn’t do anything.

I never felt rage only emptiness and it was when I started to study my classmates did I start to get scared.
I wanted to be able to really smile.
I wanted to be able to freely cry.
I wanted to be able to stop his disgusting acts.
I wanted to be able to be able to be free.
I wanted to truly be able to be a kid and enjoy my life.
I didn’t want that emptiness.
I didn’t want that numbness.
I wanted to be able to like somebody.
I wanted to have a future.

I was introduced to books in first grade.
There were a variety of books I could choose from.

My mother did take us occasionally to the downtown library to get books and stay there for a while.

My brothers never went so it was like my safe haven.

I remember getting a book at the children’s section. I thought it would be about something random like a kid loving her parents and whatnot. I don’t really remember how it started but I just had a gut feeling I should get this book so I did.
When I first read it I didn’t notice anything because I was only looking at the pictures and only read some of the pages.
It didn’t seem interesting so I got bored of it and gave it to my older sister.
We shared books.
She was reading it and asked me why I got it.
I just said the cover looked interesting and got it.
She showed me a page and told me to read it.
I read it and I was kind of scared.
I took the book from her and actually read the whole book.
It was about a girl getting raped by her dad at night and him telling her not to tell her mom.
In that her uncle had also raped her once.
In the end she told her teacher about it and they both got arrested.
I was shocked and hid the book so my brother wouldn’t see it.
The cover had looked so friendly and I had only got it because the cartoon family had looked so happy. The book was also short and looked so much like those short story books.

After that I still had my doubts about who to trust.

I went to the library whenever my mother took us. Which was rarely.

I wanted to find out more. I wanted to find out if he could be locked away forever.

Every time I went I would try to find books like the one I got.

I couldn’t find any more and I couldn’t really ask the librarian.

What I most understood was that people under 18 didn’t go to jail and people over 18 went to jail.

The only thought I had was that I had to wait for that fucker was 18 before I did anything.

I had to let him keep doing disgusting things to my sister and I.

I was scared for her.

I wanted him to be tried as an adult and go to jail for the rest of his pathetic life.

I didn’t really care about the oldest brother because he never did anything disgusting to us. He only forced us to watch horror movies with him and would hit us.

I could deal with physical abuse but not sexual.

I want him to rot in jail.
I want him to be raped daily in jail.
I wanted him to suffer.

They day finally came. He was finally 18.

But I got scared and the doubts started to come back.

What if they didn’t believe me?

They had stopped beating us so there were no bruises as evidence.

Almost every time he raped us, it was in the shower and the evidence was washed away.

I had nothing to go on by but my words.

I believe I had turned 11 that year. So, I was still basically still a kid.

I was in 6th grade by now.

The perfect moment came on Veterans Day.

Since it was a holiday and there was a parade going on downtown it would be the perfect distraction to our family.

I was too scared to call the police myself, so I had to bring them to me somehow. And running away was the next best thing.

In the middle of packing one of my younger sisters walked in.
She asked what I was doing.
I told her I was running away.

She asked if she could go and I said sure.
We headed downtown and watched the parade.
After it ended we wandered around until night-time.
I had planned to sleep in one of the schools before but I was stupid to not check the weather.
That day it rained and we were both freezing.
We slept on a playground and huddled in our clothes.

When morning came we wandered around again and reached a store.
We sat behind it and waited.
She wanted to go home because she was cold and just wanted to sleep.

The workers noticed us and made us come inside. They fed us and asked questions. By now they had already informed the cops and my family. My step sister and my cousin were the one to pick us up. When we got to the house I saw cop cars. I went in the house and saw my brother and got scared again but noticed there were policemen, so I would be okay. They led me to a room to talk with a cop and a lady. I told them almost everything.