Third Line Syndrome

 

I’ve failed to write for so long now

that I’m scared of opening Word

and now,

third line syndrome

or is it fourth

or fifth

 

oh what the hell

I may as well stop

 

but something’s different about today..

 

I think I can get over the wave

that crashes against my fortress ego

and washes over my low self-esteem?

 

Things make me tired

and I often imagine how

deadly sick morose I must look

 

I might say random words out loud

slowly

very

fuckin’

slowly

and imagine an audience

an enthralled audience

that hangs on my every

mo

no

sy

lla

bic

word

and when someone coughs

I say fa’cough back

and lose them all

to fear again.

 

I live next door to an abbatoir

and when I wake up

I don’t hear children playing

or buses breaking down

I hear the pig-squeal cry

of a very frightened cow

and when I venture out

I hold my breath from lock to lock

the blood still thick in the air.

 

I worry about the law

when the only people who aren’t appalled

and disgusted by what they’re hearing

are the people who can help

the people who have blocked it all out

as well as the victim had to

the people who cannot believe

baddies actually exist.

 

After they ignore the wept words

of a child in interview

whose innocence has been taken

and whose only confidant during years of abuse

was a teddy called Fred Ted

they check for recorders

deny every word she said

and drop the investigation

after flirting with the rather dishy father

whose control is absolute

advising the mother that putting a child through court

is way too traumatic without circumstantial evidence.

 

After a few nicely timed broken promises

slowly shaking down her belief in the system

the social worker suggests

contact with the child’s father

should be resumed as early as possible

and the mother weeps

confused

abused

just like forty years ago.

 

As I watch another star sparkle in jest

his insect lawyers piling high the cases

where the abuser got away

insisting that this child is lying

carefully rolled eyes cleverly masked

but noted by the thick as brick judge

the long arm of the law

scarred and bruised

battered and blooded

cut and portioned

and chopped and diced

for all the world to see

through nice plastic containers

at home

holding hands

together

imagining what fun it will be

to talk of paedophila

at their next dinner-party

where they’ll all agree

how society has moved on

between courses

I know there’s no love and no justice

and that another little part of me

dearly wants to stop breathing.

 

And what if they were wrong

that they had only found

for the consummate actor

because none of his liquids

came to light at the last minute.

 

What might the jury have decided

had they been given the luxury of love 

and who will lose any sleep whatever

when the little girl commits the sin

of suicide?