Eve's Apple

On my 16th birthday, my mother told me to meet her at the courthouse. I wasn’t going to school. I had run off again. I was “out of control,” she said—but the truth is, I was drowning. I had spent years living in a house where my stepdad was a raging, violent alcoholic. I’d seen him hurt my mother. He had hurt me. I had to step in and physically protect her more than once. I didn’t feel safe at home, and nobody seemed to care why I was struggling. I just wanted out. So I left. I stayed with my 19-year-old boyfriend. In Kentucky at the time, a 16-year-old could get married with a parent’s signature. No questions asked.

The First Attempt

The first time we showed up at the courthouse, the preacher was someone I’d known before—the father of my very first “boyfriend.” We thought we were in a relationship, but we mainly played video games and went to the movies. We were kids. I was still a kid. But I remembered him, and he remembered me, and he was about to officiate my marriage . “You don’t want to do this,” he said. “You’re still a little girl.” He was right. I listened. I ran. I locked myself in my mom’s van, crying and begging: “Please, just let me come home. I’ll go to school. I’ll be good. Just don’t make me marry him.” For a minute, I thought I had saved my own life.

But when a Girl’s in pain, They Call Her a problem

It didn’t last. The pain, the chaos, and the trauma—it doesn’t just disappear because you promise to behave. A few weeks later, I was spiraling again, and this time, when we went to the courthouse, I didn’t run. I signed my name and tried not to cry. I hung my head out of the window and threw up the whole way home. My body knew before my brain did: I had just been handed over. The patriarchy had claimed another life.

Just Another Cage

Turns out I didn’t escape my abusive home life at all, but I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Almost immediately, the abuse started. My new husband was physically violent, and he almost immediately became a drug-addict. I was isolated and stuck. And by the time I turned 20, I had three children. No one had asked me if I was ready to be a wife. No one had asked if I was ready to be a mother. No one had even asked if I was okay. Because girls like me weren’t supposed to be okay. We were supposed to be obedient. Useful. Quiet.

What kind of system allows this?

Let’s be clear: I didn’t choose this. I survived it. At 16, I couldn’t vote. I couldn’t sign a lease or rent a hotel room. But I could legally be handed off to a man by my mother and called a wife. As of March 2018, Kentucky passed a law banning marriage under 17, and 17-year-olds now need a judge’s approval. I can not believe child marriage is still allowed, as long as the judge says it’s okay. My life has been devastated because this state allowed me to be a victim, legally. I didn’t have a chance. Just the thought of other girls going through this keeps me up at night.

From Silenced Girl to Rebel woman

I’m not that little girl anymore. But I still carry her. I remember her tears, her fear, her silence. She didn’t get a voice. But I do. And I use it—for her. For every girl like her. For every woman who was forced to “grow up” before she ever got to just be. Eve’s Apple™ is my rebellion. My healing. My reminder that I survived—and now I’m telling the story they wanted me to keep quiet. Every shirt I make. Every verse I remix. Every slogan I wear—it all says the same thing: “You didn’t break me. You just made me louder.”

For the Girls They Tried to Silence

If you were married too young, silenced by religion, labeled “difficult,” if you are a victim of the patriarchy or if you were handed off instead of helped—you’re not alone. You were never the problem. You were a girl in pain. And now you’re a woman on fire.🔥