Instead of a heart,
You had a piggy bank.
And instead of  happiness,
You wanted to be filled with
A kind of freedom that doesn’t exist.
Freedom from who you are,
but that can never change.
I wrote lines and lines of poems,
about how my heart sang
when you held me.
While you just scraped together
lines and lines for me
on your kitchen counter,
And told me that this was you
giving me the world.
When I asked for love,
you handed me
Glasses of gin,
instead of holding me.
You filled me with fear,
When it should have been safety.
I asked for a husband,
And you handed me a pipe.
Was this the great love I dreamed of?
Glass pipes instead of slippers,
And my soul mate,
My perfect fit who pummels me into shape.

I faded into a ******* maid,
"A hollow selfish person,
who only one person could bear to love."
My dream lover,
a 6 foot 3 tradie with the temper of a 2-year-old.
27, and he still throws his toys.
It’s a shame that I’m the only thing he likes to play with.
The more he played, the lighter I became.
Soon it went from pushing, to throwing.
After tiny bruises came blood.
The pain his horrid words made,
Echoing in my head,
Like ricocheting shrapnel.
The tightness of his grip,
Leaving his handprints all over me.
The same hands that brought me pleasure,
Brought far more pain.
Lips that I once eagerly watched,
Waiting, wanting to kiss,
Now were the gate keepers,
to the most hurtful words he possessed.
The skin that once excited me,
Now pressed against me,
Holding me to the floor
as he staked his ******* claim on my body.

I watch as my Father
Makes tea for my Grandfather
(His Father-In-Law)
He removes the lid off the mug,
The hot water, inside it, once sealed,
He dabs the tea bag, it bounces, splashing,
He tears open the two sachets of sugar
Pours and mixes it all in (with no milk)
My Father has stubby, tradie fingers,
Watching them do such delicate work is odd
Then the tea sits in its plastic, blue mug
No one says a word.
Not I; not either of these men;
The tea is cooling, steaming,
We all watch, eyes intent and stern,
For a moment, the tea is sacred, holy,
A communion
Between a middle aged Catholic and an old atheist
Then, finally, this tea, horrid tasting, I imagine,
Is taken by the handle with a trembling hand
And it is sipped by trembling lips