31

27 Times came the knock on your door

Mummy answered

Alcohol on her breath, body black and blue

Domestic after domestic

Police turned away and your teacher never knew

4 times

You were sent to the nurse

They patched you up, swabbed you down

Patted your head

Noted their concerns

And never asked you

One more time

One more chance

They stepped across the threshold

Ready to help

Not from the school, not from the station

Unconnected to other and seeing as if for the first time

This filth

This degradation

The violence and neglect

The denying defiant faces of your abusers

The one who bore you and helped to take your life

Your sickly frail body twisted unnaturally in the corner

Disfigured and discarded

No-one’s fault but theirs

Still the questions beg

31 of them screaming in the conscience