Victim

I remember as a little girl
On a visit to an aunt’s friends house
I was sitting reading a story book
As quiet as a mouse

I asked to be pardoned
To go to the loo
They were all playing dominoes
So I knew what I must do

I opened up the door
And placed my foot on the first stair
Then I heard someone in a low voice say
“Are you sure that she's all there”?

I felt a tear run down my cheek
I was doing what I ought
Only speaking when I was spoken to
That's what I was taught

When I’d done what I had to do
I went back down the stairs
The domino game was finished
And there were four empty chairs

They were all in the kitchen
Drinking cups of tea
My aunt she turned to me and smiled
And handed a cup to me

She noticed my tear-stained face
And stroked it with her hand
I told her what I’d overheard
She said I was too young to understand

I was insecure throughout my childhood
Never felt like I fitted in
Undernourished because I wouldn't eat
Now I’d just be classed as thin

From the age of five
My time at school was fleeting
Feigning illness to avoid the bullies
And escape another beating

I remember cowering
In the corner of the school yard
Cigarette butts stubbed out on my arms
Left painful, sore and charred

Name-calling and violence
Made me feel inferior
Set upon by bullies
Who thought they were superior

When I became a teenager
Things they got much worse
The bullies were now older
Younger ones they would coerce
To taunt me and lie in wait
And leave me in a battered state

When i got my first job
The bullying it went on
Because my face didn't fit
I was put upon

Got lumbered with the dirty jobs
That no-one else would do
Like swilling down the filthy yard
And scrubbing the outside loo

One afternoon, the manageress
Secretly asked me whether
I would do sexual favours for a delivery man
And I reached the end of my tether

I got my coat and quit the job
Never looking back
I later heard that the manageress
Was found out and got the sack

Now that I am older
No-ones victim will I be
I stand my ground, nobody’s fool
And i am happy being me