It's hard to imagine walking down the street and not having one person look you in the eye. Not even a sidelong glance...even if it's somebody you know.
That's because you'd be walking with your head down.

Why?
Because it's even harder to walk with your face up for everyone to see. Every eye you meet has a brief expression of sympathy, one that will disappear in a few seconds and they'll forget they ever saw you. You'll either find that, or a look of pure disgust, followed by a whisper in a fellow ear, and a swift change of pace to pass you by as quickly as possible.

Sometimes I just want to stop right there, in the middle of the sidewalk, and just yell it out until my voice is hoarse.
My father did this.
It wasn't me.

Sometimes I want to put a Post-It note on my forehead, one that will stick there forever.
And on it I'll write, “this is child abuse.”

This is what it does to somebody who never asked to be stared at everywhere they go.

I want to write a lot of things on my Post-It note. I want to mention that I don't want anyone's sympathy. I want to say something about how healthy the doctors say I am. I might add that the scars are all that are left of my once serious injuries.
It might come to the point where the writing is so very small that the words no longer stand out against the yellow paper.

But then, it might come to the point where nobody even reads the words. They just keep walking along.
They look, but they don't understand.