ONLY CHILD

.

I’ve got mates
I have

Best friends
My best friends

Not yours
Mine

My very own
They like me

Let me play
Let me win

Better than your
Mates

I get presents
I do

Loads of them
Got everything

Star Wars
Cars

Soldiers
Everything

Cos I’m lucky
I am

Got my own room
Own telly

I have
Really

I don’t care
What you got

Not bothered
At all

I’ve got mates
I have

They’ll come to play
... Soon

.

.

.

For Chris

TRAPPED - EXPLICIT CONTENT

He says he’s not ready to go yet, but I am so tired. I didn’t think he would come back here tonight. I thought he would drop me at the bus stop as he usually does.
I can hear creek of the second step on the stairs. He’s coming …

‘There now, no need to be shy, come over here, let me look at you in the light’
I don’t move, he comes to me and strokes my cheek with his rough fingers. Now my jaw is cupped in his firm hand and the pressure from his thumb is forcing my face to look at him. His eyes are glazed and cold.

‘Fair’s fair eh, one good turn deserves another. A little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss here. Don’t stiffen your body like that. Relax! Anyone would think this is unnatural. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Now, let’s get this jumper off you eh, I want to see your tits. Come on, over your head, there’s a girl, and the bra too. Nice bit of lace but, there that’s better isn’t it.’
He is squeezing my breast, tight, it hurts. I call out ‘Don’t, please don’t. You’re hurting me.’

He is holding his hand over my mouth and whispering me to hush. The pressure of his body forces me to twist sharply onto the floor and I feel my head bang against the side of the coffee table. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed, my cheeks merge with my forehead and his hand pulls them back, denying my eyes a chance of escape.

‘Look at me, bitch’ he demands. I refuse and feel the rough skin of his fingers slice into my cheek at the force of his slap.
I open my eyes, but can only see a bald circle below my face. He is biting my nipple, I want to scream but his face is back up on mine and he is biting my ear, my nose, pushing his tongue into my mouth. I gag. I can’t breathe.
His uncontrolled hand pushes me sideways and I hear the zip of my jeans rip apart as he tugs them down over my thighs. I feel a sticky trickle on my cheek and taste blood dripping into my mouth from the cut on my head.
‘Don’t just lay there, have a suck on daddys lollipop, sweetie. Tastes good, come on, open. I said open up. Jesus woman, you are making hard work of this. What’s the matter, fucking frigid are you. Well we’ll soon sort that out.’

He slides down my body and tears off my pants. I stare at the light bulb above my head, my mind dives into the white sea and swims away from me.
I will have to come back, my children are sleeping upstairs.

BILLY EXPLAINS

Every day my mum and me play a game called 'Say what you’re thinking'. When we say that you have to say and tell the truth or the game doesn't work. Sometimes I ask her when she's doing dinner or watching telly. Its silly cos she thinks about not what she's doing. I asked her when she was washing my hair and she said she was thinking that the bathroom ceiling was a funny shape!

But she won't play today, she just says 'Not now Billy'. She hasn't played since my dad went to heaven last week. Heaven is up in the sky, farther away than the moon and the stars; God takes you there cos you can't get a rocket there yet. You have to fall asleep forever first and then when you do, God comes and gets you out of your body and takes you in his invisible flying bus to heaven. It's a bigger bus than the one we go to town in and it's always full up so you have to wait. I want to go there now so dad can take me to football but Granny says you have to be old to go there, but that’s not true cos my friend Tom's baby sister went there before she was even one.

Rainbows come from heaven. My dad told me that and my dad knows everything. He told me that rainbows are smiles from Granddad. He sends smiles like that so we can see them cos rainbows come from the sun in the universe and heaven is in the universe. Rainbow smiles is how God lets everyone in the universe know they're all still together.
Granddad sent a rainbow smile today; it was on the table in the front room by Granny's glass bowl. I called Mum to come and see but she just said 'Not now Billy'. I asked her what she was thinking, I wanted to play our special game, but she didn't answer. She just started crying again and Granny took her upstairs.

Auntie Kate closed the curtain over a bit and Granddad’s rainbow smile disappeared. I wanted to really punch her like I punched Sammy Jacobs on Monday in the playground. He said I would have to go to a foster home cos my dad's dead. I told him my dad had gone to heaven to see my granddad and Sammy laughed at me so I punched him. I wish God would have took Sammy on the bus instead of my dad.

I don't have to go to a foster home cos I'm going to look after my mum and granny. Granny said I am the man of the house now. I don't have to lock the back door before we go to bed though, cos you don't have to remember to do that until you are ten.
Auntie Kate has just gone up to see my mum and granny so I've got to go now cos I want to move the bowl over on the table so my dad can send me a rainbow smile. See ya.

THE CAT SAT ON THE MAT

.

the cat sat

on the mat

the tabby

cat sat

on the red

mat the brown and white tabby cat sat on the soft red mat the fluffy

brown and white tabby cat sat on the corner of the soft red mat

the little fluffy brown and

white tabby cat quietly

purred as it sat on the

corner of the soft

red fireside mat

the cute little fluffy

brown and white tabby cat dozed and quietly purred as it

sat on the warm corner of the soft red woollen fireside

mat

the

cat

still

sat

on

the

mat

.

GROUP THERAPY

‘Why don’t you make ‘er say somethin’ for a change. Stuck up cow. We’re all ‘ere for the same reason yer know. Our 'eads are fucked.’
Maggie raised her empty brown eyes towards the voice that had callously returned her to the group. Her long hazel hair screened her freckled face from those sat each side of her. She tried to switch her mind back to ‘standby’ but it was too late, Jessie had pressed the ‘on’ button.
‘Yeh, you, miss too good to be ‘ere, bet you think yer …’
‘Jessie, perhaps you would like to tell us why Maggie’s silence is so difficult for you’ interrupted Sue.
‘And perhaps I wouldn’t too. I just don’t see why she can be ‘ere and say nothin’ when you said we all have to try and voice our feelin’s. Well, I’m voicin’ mine, she’s fuckin’ me off.’
Squeezing her hands between clenched thighs, Maggie desperately tried to control the urge to rock her body back and forth, a security comfort she had used since childhood. Concentrating on rocking had helped her distance herself from her fears, given her a minute sense of control. But now, in this circle of strangers, it would reveal her insecurities more than give her comfort.
‘She’s only been here a couple of weeks Jessie, give her a break’ whispered Janey cautiously.
‘Just don’t, eh. We all sit round here like fuckin’ numbers on a clock waitin’ for the hand to touch us, waitin’ for each other to spew out our sordid little pasts, so Sue ‘ere can feel a great sense of satisfaction because she got one of us to ‘open up’. Well, you all know I’m a fuckin cokehead, that my dad had more sex with me than my fuckin mum and we all know that sweet little Janey here conveniently forgot to feed her kid so they took it away from her. So come on then, out with it, what’s so special about ‘er fuckin problem that she thinks it’s worth keeping secret.’ replied Jessie.

Maggie pinched hard through her light denim jeans into the flesh of her skinny thighs. But this physical scream was not loud enough to drown the conversation taking place around her. How could she tell these people that she was here because she had no guts. She couldn’t even let go of the bridge railings. The memory of her mother in law’s recent words hammered around Maggie’s head, beating them securely into every corner of her brain ‘She will drag you down Rob, you deserve so much more.’ On Rob’s last visit he had bought her a Gucci silver bracelet watch. Another guilt gift for the collection. But he had not touched her apart from a slight brushed kiss on her cheek when he arrived and left.

‘Well, this is a cosy little group today aint it. Shall we all ‘ave a guess at what ‘er problem is, pass the time a bit, we’ve only got ‘alf an ‘our left. Come on then Janey, what d’ya reckon, is she a murderer, did she do her ‘usband in or cut all the neighbours cats tails off.’
‘As you seem to have a lot to say this morning Jessie, and as I suggested earlier, why don’t we explore the reasons you find these quiet moments uncomfortable.’ said Sue quickly glancing around the group capturing everyone’s body language, before settling her eyes on Jessie.
The walls of the room seemed to advance forward, closing in on the circle of troubled lives, increasing the tension by condensing the mood close around the three people who had dominated the morning’s discussion.
‘Look, I aint ‘ere for the love of it. The fuckin’ judge said it was this or prison, and your “I go to church on Sundays, aren’t I a good person” act don’t fool me, so don’t fuckin’ bother with miracle working in ere, right.’ retorted Jessie as she lifted her feet up onto the edge of her chair and wrapped her arms around them. Her tall slender frame folded as if prepared to be the next surprise out of a Jack in a Box. ‘I don’t need you lot or anyone else. I’m just doin’ me days and then getting the fuck out of ‘ere.’ she continued.

‘Swearing is bad Jessie. You shouldn’t do it. You are always saying that word, all the time. It’s not right. People shouldn’t say that word, it’s a bad word.’ said Julie who was sat safely opposite Jessie and next to Sue, which was probably what gave her the courage to speak. She pushed her arms up the opposite sleeves of her baggy cream hand knitted jumper as if placing herself in a makeshift straight jacket before anyone else did.
The second hand of the cheap blue plastic wall clock ticked it’s way round the face taking five seconds to reach each number. Reliable. Constant.
‘If only people stayed the same, as trustworthy as a ticking clock.’ thought Maggie. She concentrated on the repetitive sound and watched the second hand make tiny jumps from one number to the next. ‘Clocks stay the same, move at the same pace, don’t step out of line or behave unexpectedly, don’t suddenly become louder or frighten you, or have impossible expectations of you; unless they are over wound, then they flip. Rob’s like that.’ thought Maggie ‘and I am the key.’ She had been unaware of her body language while she had been thinking and now realised that she too had lifted her legs up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her ankles and as this realisation hit her, she saw Jessie, staring at her …


to be continued...

FREE WRITE Just Wandering

So where are we going then mind
what journey shall we take
what shall we look at
those fish in the river that no-one else could see
I swear they were there
but dad said that I was imagining things
and that was lying so I must be careful
Lying is bad
but when it is real to me is that I lie
Say what you mean
tell the truth
but what is the truth
what you want to hear or what I saw
which one is a lie
I’m older now
try and tell it how it is
not get too near to drowning
by holding on to the rocks
slipping but just saving my sanity
so that you are saved
by not hearing what you do not want to hear
What a mess this truth lie business
Thoughts racing around in my head
memories, real things
real times, real moments
with nowhere to go
I lose either way
tell you and you get angry
don’t tell you and you get angry
Strange world
but I am hanging in there
wet, bruised
and catching a glimpse of the most beautiful sunset that your back is turned to ...

RAMBLED THOUGHTS OF A PSYCHIATRIC PATIENT - 1977

They stare at me and I get scared.
I’m not mad.
I don’t shout, attack people or scream and throw things.
Are my eyes empty like hers?
Why did they put me here?
I want my kids.
No, please, no more tablets, they make me drowsy.
I can’t think, I get a big grey cloud in my head where my brain should be.
Stop her nurse, stop her.
She’s by my bed, in my locker, she’s got my things.
Nurse, she got my things.
I tried and take them away but she pushed me and I fell.
She’s got my things.
Please get me my things.
I don’t want the light out, please, low, I’ll leave it low, I won’t turn it up.
I’m afraid, I want my granddad, no I don’t want him to see me here.
I shouldn’t be here.
I want my kids.
Why are they doing this to me.
Why won’t they listen, they ask me to talk, but they don’t hear me.
They say your mind runs away with you, that the tablets will dull your mind, give it a rest.
But they won’t listen.
I don’t want tablets, I want someone to hear me, to believe me.
Why won’t anyone listen.
Blue plastic chairs full of cigarette burns, that lady burns herself, all up her arm.
I know that helps her, because cutting helps too.
They don’t understand that it doesn’t hurt, it stops it hurting.
Dinner bell, queue, must eat.
They watch you, sit you eight to a table, four each side and they watch you.
The nurses and the other patients, they watch you.
They have knives now, they start fights.
Sometimes someone gets pulled to the floor and the injection goes in and they stop thrashing about.
Why am I here?
I’m not mad.
They won’t listen.
Valium injections, please no more. I’m not mad, you are making me worse.
My in laws visited today, said I should pull myself together.
Said I have children at home and I should think of them not myself.
Can’t even argue, can’t concentrate on their faces, too sleepy.
I hate them.
I sit there and they leave, disgusted looks badly hidden, easy for me to see.
They walk through the door and it locks.
Can’t get out.
Have to ask if I want to go for a walk.
Autumn, trees, gold red leaves, when I was little ran through them on happy days.
Can’t go out anyway too scared.
World too big, scary, sky so big not safe.
Not safe in here but smaller, so better.
Dark walls move towards me, my name is being called, time for medication.
The trolley, line up, take your cup of water dear.
Now swallow, come on now, be a good girl, all of them, open let’s see, and under your tongue.
Come on now you can do better than that.
You want to get well don’t you.
You want to see your children again.
AGAIN, what do they mean again.
I’m a good mum.
I don’t want these pills, don’t want to be here.
You put me here.
You won’t listen.
Just somebody listen, for god’s sake somebody listen.
Cooking class, cooking class, you are joking!
Can’t think that then, too drugged up, must write this again on reflection and take the piss out of it, the bastards.
Cooking class, come on sweetie upstairs, if you want to go home you we need to know you can look after yourself.
Beans on toast, beans on toast!
Oh god, pease I am so sorry.
I didn’t mean it really I didn’t.
I don’t even know what I did but I didn’t mean it.
I want to go home.
I want my children.
Co-operate, just co-operate.
Try and look OK.
If you look like you are co-operating they don’t check your mouth after pills.
Have to stop the pills, never get better if I don’t.
They say they are going to give me ECT next week.
I will refuse, I won't have it, never.
She has ECt look at her over there, she never wakes up.
She walks around, opens her eyes, eats, but she never wakes up.
Got to wake up, got to get out of here.
Got to find someone who believes me, got to, or I’ll die.


to be continued ...