dentist drilling
„Open wide
Relax!“
Eyes squeezed shut
Spinning
Through the dust and debris
Of things past
A Northern Ireland sixties classroom
Palm outstretched
For the willow cane
For a pencil stuck
In a best friend’s head
For forbidden words
„Fuck you! You’re dead!“
Forbidden words
But worser still
The words left
Unsaid
Playing tig
In the schoolyard
Quickly caught, squashed
No room to breathe
„When a man marries a woman
He asks her if she wants
To make a baby.
She says yes, and then
He sticks his thing up her
Fanny“
No! No! No!
This is worse than custard
Force-fed in the school canteen
I run
The Journey Home
was ne’er much fun
A yellow bus, Mr Magowan
hacking and spitting us
all on board
for a twisty jaunt o’er
Gillygooley and Drumquin hills
I sit alone, mostly
Or with my brother
Counting rain drops on cloudy window panes
the others laughing, yelling, teasing
doing deals
and us? Small, so very small
waiting
in a vacuum of noise
every Protestant hedge
every Catholic tree
bringing us closer
and closer
end stretch
the yellow bus stops
C’mon get up, get out first
and maybe, just maybe....
But the seats have feet to trip us up
arms to hold us back
twisting and turning down the steps
schoolbags caught up in some
big thorn bush smelling blood
tearing for skin, demanding sacrifice
and the others? - laughing, yelling, pushing
my brother piggy in the middle bouncing ball
daring me to rescue
Still. I stand still. Where is the courage?
Blue. True Blue.
I hold on to the straps of my schoolbag.
And I run
And I run
And I run
The Playground
Sharon and her brother Mark circa 1973
Summer. School’s out for summer. Alice Cooper or summertime and the livin’ is easy, grass is jumpin’ and the fish are high. Or something Janis Jopinly like that. Yes, summertime – those lazy, hazy mythical days for swimming with friends in cool water, licking ice cream from between your fingers, falling in love and licking ice cream from between someone else’s fingers.
So far, so good. But it’s not good. For this is summer in Omagh, summer in a small town in Northern Ireland in the early 1970’s. There’s nothing to do, nowhere to swim and even if there were, it’s too cold and raining most of the time. I’ve spent all my pocket money in the first two days of the holidays on sweets and crisps. And I’ve eaten them all as I lie alone in the front room, reading and reading. Outside pouring rain. Inside, I read and read. But even with that I’m now bored.
And as for falling in love. Who would want me? For I’m nine or maybe ten, plump in all the wrong places and have wild red hair.
“You need to lose some weight.” said my mother’s sharp-tongued sister not that long ago, pinching at the fat around my waist as I stood in the kitchen reaching for a bun.
No, there’ll be none of this hot and wild smooch and sex business I secretly read through in the adult section of the mobile library when no-one’s watching. Harold Robbins “The Carpetbaggers”. What’s a fucking carpetbagger anyhow?
So yeah summer time. And a whole two desperate months of it.
“I wannae go tae the park!” whines my younger brother. Now that I’m old enough to be responsible my mother’s gone back to work part-time. And left me alone to look after my five-year old brother. What fun!
“Jesus!” I scream. He’s just hit me with his metal Tonka truck. I kick him. He kicks me back. I thump him. He screams hysterically.
“Am gonnae tell mammy on you, so I am!”
“You started it you wee bastard!”
“You said a bad word, so you did!” and he screams again. Louder.
Shit, what’ll I do? I decide:
“Ok, ok. Look if ye wannae go tae the playground, we’ll go tae the playground.”
So
