what happened to mommy? by Tia Borley (17, UAE)

[content warning: domestic abuse]

911 what’s your emergency?  
‘he is going to kill me; he is going to kill me’ 
Then one-year probation, 
just like O.J Simpson. 

Daddy was my hero; I never said a word. none
of the screaming and shouting I had heard, 
Scratches not like falling in the playground, just
ones that kept her bound. ​

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Mummy’s face was never the same,  
her eyes now flicker with pain, 
her face is drained, 
just white remain. 

She cleans blood from the bed,  
go to sleep she said, 
you still hear screaming in your head,
just silence still. 

Her secret thick and deep like her scars, 
Tear through her heart,  
Covered in cheap makeup layed on, 
Ripped hair can be fixed in a salon.  

You play with your dolls, 
you are sat and you are told, 
depression and anxiety are signs, 
domestic abuse is the crime. 

Conflict is only in the middle east we are told,
but there are wars behind closed doors. 
Without the glory and the hope,  
you are choked by the throat. 

There’s a gun to your head, 
you lay shaking in your bed,  
‘You disgusting whore’, 
Every hour three women are dead. 

Mummy why don’t you leave?  
‘I fear for my life, no one will believe’. 
She lies alone on the floor, 

it is different from before. 
He swore he would stop,
she just can’t take anymore. 

I don’t know what I believe. 
Mummy why didn’t you leave?