Drunken lullabies

 
A Yale key crunches the locked door open
A song of no surrender breaks the silence
As he rebounds freely off walls like a pinball
A mother rushes to make him his supper
She tries and fails to get him to be quiet
He sings sectarian evil much, much louder
He beats his ape like chest much prouder
Like a rat she hurriedly scuttles back to bed
In full knowledge that the song was not over

He can multi-task, staggering and singing
The whole house is fearful, which door
Will he choose to disturb its inhabitant
I can almost hear the trembling of others
Tonight it is going to be my turn not theirs
If doors can fly, mine just flew wide open
His drunken shadow reached me first
He slumped down sitting on my bed
He offered me whiskey from the bottle
Being just seven, I was not yet a drunkard

He can multi-task, he can punch, he can slap
He can kick, molest or all of them combined
Tonight is a bonus I will get them all
I’ve stopped screaming, nobody comes
Nobody helps you when you scream
It’s hard to scream with a hand over your face
You just have to take what he gives you
And keep your mouth firmly shut, in case
He says worse things could happen
If I don’t’ keep this secret and to myself

How can it be a secret when all the others
In the house can hear everything transpiring
Mother, sister and big brother escape tonight
Maybe this is what they mean by an open secret
He leaves taking the whisky breath with him
Still staggering and singing his sectarian filth
I cry and cuddle my favourite teddy bear
The only real witness to the evil that men do
He can’t report it, he can’t protect me
He can only comfort me after the fact
He too knows screaming makes no difference
We are both surviving drunken lullabies