I Sing the Blues and Cry: For the Little Girls of the World

By Iris Killens Cheeks

Many of us go through life feeling isolated and alone in a world full of family, friends, and gods. In I Sing the Blues and Cry, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse expresses through both poetry and prose the shared fear, confusion, anger, hope, and faith needed to accomplish joy in a world infused with pain. One out of every four little girls is sexually abused, and the majority of the abusers are family members or close friends of the family in America today. They are trapped in a cage of shame, guilt, and secrecy. Bodies grow, minds mature, yet there still remains a broken little girl within each victim.

Author Iris Killens Cheeks shares conversations, verse, and vital resources to open a door into the thoughts, perceptions, and soul of a survivor of sexual, mental, and emotional abuse. This little girl found a way to survive, mature, and conquer many of the battles she faced due to traumatic experiences that no child should have to endure. Hers is a story that is poignant, revealing, and upliftinga story of light, acceptance, forgiveness, and growth.

I Sing the Blues and Cry is an inspiring look beyond the surface into the eyes of a child, a woman, and a survivor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491720646

Iris Killens Cheeks

Iris Killens Cheeks is a twenty-year veteran teacher with a BS in education and an MA in professional studies in education. She hails from Lumberton, North Carolina, but presently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, Robert. She has six children, thirteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2012, 2014 Iris Killens Cheeks.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-2062-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2063-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2064-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014903817

iUniverse rev. date: 05/16/2014

Contents

To Tell the Story

Be Quiet

This Won’t Hurt

Be Good

Be Still

Don’t Close Your Eyes

Tell your truth

Loving You!

20131011072032Page01.jpg

This story is dedicated to my mother, for loving

me with all that she had. To Hannah, she

is my inspiration for the possibilities within. To

Ersula, Shawn, Judston, Courtney and Mary, who

force me to give an example of being more.

Of You

Many children remember the ugly of the story,

A moment of shame in a year of glory.

When I tell my story, it will be of the best of you.

Such an epic of beauty and it will all be true.

Songs of praise will echo in every hall,

Monuments raised and great exploits recalled.

I’ll let them know how marvelous you are.

I’ll let them feel the power of your star.

You are precious, amazing, wonderful and true.

This is what I’ll remember

Of you.

Images

For the Little Girls of the World – by Hanna Bolden

Now Pick That Up Before Your Momma Gets Home

God and Nasty People – by Hanna Bolden

Don’t Leave Me

The Doll

Somebody’s Baby

A Walk in the Park

The People Saying Grace – by Hanna Bolden

A Mask of Smiles – by Hanna Bolden

You Used To Be Pretty

Why Don’t You Just Shut Your Mouth! – by Hanna Bolden

The Wind

Marigold

My Prayers Fall

Faces

Bird on a Fence

Some Place Else

When we dance

Flower in Bloom

When We Dance

Day by day

Moment by moment

We dance

Without touching

Or looking

Into each other’s

Eyes…

Introduction

Many of us just dance through life feeling isolated and alone in a world full of family, friends and gods. Only shadows of what we could be, of what we pretend to be.

This work is organized as a reflection of my journey through life thus far. These writings offer a view into my thoughts, emotions and soul as I attempted to simply survive, to overcome, to conquer and to live after being the victim of molestation. One reader told me that these writings sounded like there were multiple contributors to the finished work. At first I was taken aback but then I realized that she was partially correct. My life’s experiences have drastically changed my perceptions, as well as the ability and methods of communicating them. I can’t say that I evolved because I am still every part of me. Instead, I will say that