Poems of School Memories

I
The One Chance

Mummy?
Yes Dear
I sometimes have accidents
In my pants and pyjamas

(Tell me more.
When did this start?
Why is it happening?
Are you crying?
Tell me all
From the beginning)

It’s probably a little constipation darling
Not to worry.

A moment lost
Not repeated
The Horror continues
Unabated

II
Struggle

I struggle to the surface
I see light above

I break for air and cry out
But no-one hears
In this vast and senseless ocean
Of hurt and pain

I fold my arms and hug myself
And sink again into darkness
And struggle no more

It’s easier that way

III
If I had decided to do it

Turn me over!

Thirteen year old boy
Undernourished, pallid

It’s because I kept to the shadows

Pre-puberty.  Enlarged breasts.
Odd.
His heart muscle texture is very dense.

I had such a heavy heart

Brain.  Seemingly larger than normal

I was bright and had much to give

Stomach contents – a simple breakfast and some
Unidentified white mucus material

It’s their sperm

Bruises on the upper arms.  He was anxious –
He hugged himself before he did it

It’s where they held me an hour before I did

Severed arteries on the left wrist
Clean and precise as if with a surgeon’s knife

That was my dream

I think that’s it then.
Decision.
Suicide, probably depressed

Turn me over, look down there and see!
What the b******s did to me!

IV
Cadet Headquarters

Lewiston!
Loft
Lunchtime
Alliteration how clever

What is it to be this time,
Climbing those wooden steps? Again

He had been waiting
I needed the lavatory – just in case – I said

(Options Bum Suck W***)

The Decision (please let it be W***)
W*** me off you little s***

Relief - No pain today

Just globs of white slimy Shame
Must dodge them as they shoot from It

Mental and material
The stains are difficult to rinse away

Shut the door
Behind you when you leave
It’s on the latch

Tread the globs into the wood
To hide It the Shame as I descend
Once more to the world
A little more of my life taken away
And surrendered

Afternoon school
LEWISTON
WAKE UP BOY
YOU ARE NOT ATTENDING
WHAT HAVE I JUST SAID?

My Bloody School, My Bloody Life

V
Cinema Society

I didn’t go to the film

In the all-but-dark in another building
I am pushed and prodded into a rehearsal room
Some other time I had made musical magic there

There are others there already
oif***off

No escape – no excuse
Another room

Darker now the doors are shut
Double doors so that sounds
(beautiful notes during the light
whimpering cries during the night)
Cannot escape and clarion the fear and pain contained

Now naked
(trying not to pee
in fright)
As hands in silence
Stroke me
Up and down, and sometime rest
On my bloody breast

Breath on my shoulder
My stomach tumbles over.
Other clothes, not mine, drop to the ground
As the moment draws closer

As he

Tormentor?
Aggressor?
Demon?
Master?
Boyfriend? (he’s inside my head)

Readies himself for his pleasure
He pulls my shoulders round
I feel it pushing in between
Probing, feeling and then

Breathe out, relax
You’ve done this a dozen times before
Wait for the push and push out yourself
Don’t fight
Don’t clench
It doesn’t work

It’s in now those searing seconds
Struggling for breath and accommodation
The anticipation gone
We’re in the act
And it won’t be long

Less pain now
Be still
Compliant
No use at all being defiant

The End is close
His ever increasing urgency stops
Its over
His stuff is in me
It’s up there

Careful please
Please - careful

He is
As he pulls It out of me
(no accidents to clear up this time)

Go home

Good film darling?

Yes Mummy very funny
I’m just going for a bath

VI
An Old Photograph Rediscovered

I look at your face
My brother and friend
And see in its gentle humility
An absence of inner hope and joy

How can I repair this now?
To bring light in to your life
And a promise of things
Better to come forever

How can I promise to hold you safe
From fear and dread anxiety?
To hold you close and not let you go
Once more into the Wilderness I made for you

For you are me and I am you
And with our Refuge we can now go on
To better things and safety from them
Who set out to destroy us from within

And when we die we will be one
And closer than ever before
We will be alone from all around
But happy to have found each other again

VII
School Chapel

Sitting by the aisle
In a pew four persons wide
(Five in first year – shove up!)
A prefect walking by
Thrust a blunt spear
Into my stomach

By looking my way
And knowingly smiling
Haughty, all powerful
As I snatched a glance upwards
From the floor
(my eyes’ normal resting place)
To see if it was Him

It was
I had no shield
And in it came
That spearhead
That gut wrenching spasm of wretched shame

VIII
Gender

If I was a girl,

It would have been:

But I wasn’t a girl
I was a boy
And went to a Public School
So that’s all right then
Boys will be boys
In a pecking order

This is a useful lexicon
Of life there

IX
Rag Doll

I’m a rag doll, rag doll, rag doll
Tossed and twisted
And then thrown away
Just as my owner wants

It’s easier that way
Than to struggle and fight
Don’t look at him
Look up and fix on the light

Above his head
At the ceiling
Rag dolls don’t have feeling
Rag dolls aren’t supposed to bleed

Don’t look in his eye
His eyes are his power he wants me within
But rag dolls don’t have memory
That would remain etched for eternity

Rag doll, rag doll, rag doll,
Pitched and thrown
Turned over, butchered, maimed and made dirty
Let it all pass and run!
In your mind ‘Run away rag doll’!

Body bent just as he wants
Legs and arms in twisted ways
(Frontwards and backwards)
He’ll push and pull it into creases
And then do whatever he pleases

Rag dolls don’t speak
Rag dolls don’t sneak
Rag dolls do as they’re told
Rag dolls aren’t bold

Rag dolls stay silent
Rag dolls don’t fight aren’t violent
Rag dolls’ owners pull them apart
Rag dolls’ owners don’t have heart

Finished, discarded, thrown away
Into a mental box, in the corner ignored
Waiting for some time another day
Of being a rag doll, rag doll, rag doll

Just think rag doll, rag doll, rag doll,
It’s the best way of survival
Be a numb, supple and forever submissive
Docile and accepting, and a totally passive
Rag Doll

Poems by David