Creeping through to the cold kitchen,
desperate, daring to decant a drink
into her dirty cup from her school bag
long since hung up, and the small
heart in the little girl clung achingly
to the hope that he would not hear.
——————————-
Canned from his countless cans,
his cantankerous snoring filled her
head and clutching the water she
slowly sneaked past til carefully
clear, and carrying her thirst she
tiptoes up the bare boarded stairs.
————————
She sits on her dirty sheets and sips
some of the water, saving some for
the next time when he lashes out at
her mum and furiously smashes their
fragile life, swearing and shouting til
she, curled up tightly under her bed
————————
breaks down, pleading prayers to a
baby away in a messy manger, to
move her to where she hears music
but her Mum’s moaning in the bolted
bathroom, shakily stemming the
silently, streaming blood, hopeless
————————–
and lost, deafens her to a crying child
hurting, huddled in her tight place,
needing cuddles and swaddling.
Waiting til all was finally quiet she
looked from her virtual, ‘virus
barred’ window, and shouted silently,
her pleading pale thin face another
————————-
victim of a government, ill prepared,
blindly following fiscal policies that,
fill the queues at the failing foodbank,
hail racism and mysogeny instead of
breaking the cruel chains of domestic
violence and viral child abuse. Our
