Giddy

Giddy with the prospect. Last night left the office and 5 weeks stretch out ahead like a huge hole in the sky. It’s what she wants every breathing day but she's scared witless with the freedom. When you’re let out of prison the world’s a very big playground. 4 years. Fighting for sanity. Acting the human shield for the boys. Her body itself become a solid mass, her skeleton brittle as a mother’s scolding, wasted as a ripped cloth.

She's in their firing line. It's not their fault. The day to day love that is translated into protecting and nurturing them is engulfed in the tidal wave of need that their father represents for them. Her position in the love league plummets within the space of an innocent request to put their shoes on. I prefer daddy, I can’t wait for daddy to arrive. But then could it be any other way? Deprivation leads to hunger and it’s a yawning gap to fill.

You hear it comes out in the wash but what does anyone know? Where do all these prophets suddenly appear from? In the meantime one's shattered equilibrium is asked to fend for itself. The violence endured becomes part of the structure.

How to be a good mother? That fragile confidence. Knocked on the head by a psychopath father. Reserves depleted, just surviving his delirious madness for 4 (make that 14) long years, his crazy outbursts, his violence, his meticulous terror campaign of turning his own children against their first haven. No wonder she's a hollow shaft masquerading as a tough cookie. She had no choice but to hold on. She has a duty but duty can choke out the love that’s in a person leaving them jagged. How can she live with herself, the wicked witch? No kind and tender mirror held up to her in her solitary mission. No encouraging. That’s for her to do. She doesn’t believe any more. She doesn’t believe in a better future. She believes in the inexorable walking the thin line to preserve her dear ones but never having the luxury to look after herself. So what’s new? It’s been that way ever since she can forget.