Vicky Pointing
Jade
The sweat drying on your cheeks is forgotten,
Tears trickling down your face.
Silent promises warm in your suddenly tender heart.
You clutch this precious thing close to you,
Your hands shaking,
Your throat tight with love.
This is your baby, yours.
You made her, you have carried her.
You are stunned by her existence.
Your mother felt just the same when you were born.
The mother who calls you all those names,
Cried when she first saw you.
The father who scars your back with his belt
Couldn’t take his eyes from your face.
When you began to cry,
All they wanted was to comfort you.
But you grew up.
Their constant bullying and violent hatred
Of a girl who had failed to be perfect
Made you grow up.
You learnt that violence was control,
That the threat of pain gave you a hold over others.
You drove a girl out of school,
Her face swollen and her lips bleeding.
And now you have a baby
Whose father beats you like your own daddy did.
A sense of the inevitable squats, ugly,
Over your hospital bed.
It waits for your daughter’s skin
To blossom into bruises.
For salt to stain her cheeks,
Her own blood a trigger to the realisation
That she too has failed
To be perfect.
Page(s) 88
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