After you beat her
(not straight after,
but soon after)
My mum left
me with you.
She repeated
like a prayer
how you would never
hurt me
Never lay a finger on me.
I was safe with you.
And I was.
Each month
I would call her
hysterical
over some
act of non-violence.
A door torn off
A smashed TV
My brothers
fighting,
but not play fighting:
one throwing the other
down the stairs
one (the same one)
hitting the other with a
baseball bat.
And my dad,
Well, he did his best
Gave me money for the chip shop
and told me mum
loved her new family
better
that she had new children now.
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