He does not come with chains,
not at first.
He comes with sweets,
with laughter tucked neatly
inside his pockets,
with words polished smooth
like pebbles washed by rivers.
He learns the child’s silence,
the way her eyes flinch
when storms rattle inside her home.
He learns the cracks in her world,
the places where love
has not poured enough.
And there,
like poison finding an open vein,
he seeps in.
His voice is a soft spell,
wrapping around innocence,
“Shh… this is our secret,”
he whispers,
teaching trust to walk backwards
until it forgets its name.
He builds a prison
not of iron,
but of confusion:
“Good girls don’t tell.
No one will believe you.
This means I love you.”
The child,
too young to know betrayal
wears shame like borrowed skin,
too heavy for her small frame.
He grooms with patience
each smile, each gift,
each hand lingering too long
a rehearsal
for the theft of purity.
He teaches her to question herself,
to fear her own voice,
to believe her body
is a crime she caused.
And when he is done
when her laughter is fractured,
when her childhood is ashes
he slips back into the world
looking like a neighbor,
a teacher,
an uncle,
a priest.
The mask spotless,
the monster unseen.
And the girl
her cries are silent earthquakes.
She carries them into womanhood,
where trust becomes a battlefield,
and love feels like a trick
she is always waiting to uncover.
Because the pedophile
does not just touch flesh.
He rewrites memory.
He vandalizes innocence.
He takes a child’s tomorrow
and leaves her
shivering in yesterday.
Ifedolapo Ogunniyi
Ifedolapo Ogunniyi 