I am by no means a great singer, but here is my version of Til It Happens To You, originally by Lady Gaga. She wrote this song after facing sexual assault. An important note: this is by no means a political statement. Here, also, is the original version as sung by Lady Gaga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmWBrN7QV6Y

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Knock, thump.

“What was that?” my mom asks. I stare at her. I don’t know. “Maybe someone’s at the door,” my dad offers. But it’s late. It’s 9:00, too late for anyone to come visit.

My stomach hurts, a ball is stuck in my throat. I’m nervous. What if someone breaks in? What if someone comes and steals something? What if a murderer is standing outside? The muffled noise is probably the wind.

A few minutes later, my mom goes downstairs. As she leaves, I worry. What if someone gets her? What if she can’t protect herself? I don’t want her to die. I don’t want to die.

She comes back. “It was nothing. Just the dishwasher.” Our dishwasher is loud. I have spent many nights downstairs working, listening in the silence to the bustling dishwasher.

I am relieved. But the worry stays in the back of my mind.

In today’s world, I do not feel safe. I get scared by small noises, darkness, shifts in the house. I am not okay alone. I hear a thump of a tree and I think someone is after my family. I see someone appear at the door and I think he/she is trying to hurt us. I walk into darkness and I feel as though someone is chasing after me, ready to grab me and keep me from the rest of my life.

I can only assume one explanation: the world is not safe. Everyday I hear about shootings and murders. And they’re not just in big cities; they are everywhere. I feel like at any moment, someone in the middle of the street could whip out a gun and ruin everything I’ve worked for. Everyday I think about people in Africa and the Middle East, starving, hungry, and faced with danger constantly. I wonder when the next bomb will hit them, and when the next bomb will hit me. I worry that a terrorist is trying to blow me up.

I walk the streets and wonder if a man will grab me, whistle, touch me. I cannot walk in the dark peacefully. I am a woman, and that is a danger. My mom checks every college we visit. They better have a good security system and police to escort me if no one else is there to help.

But the police scare me too. What if I get pulled over? Will the officer look at me differently? Will he look at my skin, or will he look at the speed of my car?

***

I like watching crime shows. I love Bones, a show about a forensic anthropologist and FBI agent who work together to solve murder cases. I am immersed in the story line, until I shut off the screen. And then I’m back in the dark study room, and my parents are asleep. The wind is howling and the dishwasher is thumping. The murders are no longer imagined or created. There is no longer fantasy or “it’s just TV.” The fear is alive. The stranger at my door is waiting.

I turn on the lights downstairs, bracing my escape from the person waiting to get me. One by one, as I move through the first floor, I shut off the lights. I turn on the upstairs light and the flashlight on my phone. One more light shut off, and the whole floor will be dark. I do it. And then I thump, running up the stairs before I am caught. I reach the second floor and leap over the creaky spot right at the foot of the stairs. I don’t want to wake my parents. I turn on the light upstairs, look around, sigh. I don’t think I was followed. I turn of the light, hurry into my room, and lock the door. Before I go to bed, I will check the corner beside my bed. I am not a little kid anymore. I am no longer scared of monsters. I am scared of the world.