Dedicated to girls everywhere
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They say that cells in the body
renew themselves every seven years They say that cats have nine lives When I was nine Or was it ten, eleven, twelve? I learned to smoke I learned to sing I learned to wrap my heart Inside a knot of string Thirteen and that’s when the drinking started The Mandrax, the reds, the blues Red Leb, Paki Black, microdots And fight after fight Sneaking off to the pub in Glasgow, the Red Lion With my sisters and the men who were buying Was it one vodka or two, three or four Until the police came knocking at our door My sister in George Square had been caught With a man and the dope they had bought Yelling and screaming out of their heads The police knocked my parents out of their beds To the station at the town center my parents were taken To find my sister trembling and shaking Out the door my father was able to bail her In the street he knocked her to the curb Smashed his fist and foot into her face My mother stood over them, there was no grace Take off her glasses they’re expensive was all she said My father removed them and beat her almost dead Locked into the house, onto canvas she painted a man screaming help And turned it outward, making my father explode, yelp How dare you, take that down, you ungrateful whore Do that again, you’ll be hook line and sinker out that door Where was she to go, fifteen and scared I at her side, oh, if only we dared Fight after fight, my sisters and I were punched In the stomach, heart, and neck, sucked Into this town dark as the night, kidnapped By the man who dealt the deck I sought comfort in sex with a man Or was it two, three or four, glad to be so in demand Until a baby came knocking at my door Knocked up by a heroin addict Who shot up, then threw up Before taking me into the bathroom Where on black and white tiles blurred together like ink I pretended to enjoy it I wanted love After he got up and left me there I knew for sure nothing was fair My father punched me in the stomach when he found out No longer could I leave the house, there was no way out The baby sucked out of me in an illegal abortion Down in South London, it must have cost a fortune The nurses they hated me, they too called me whore Wouldn’t give me food to eat, hissing through a crack in the door While back in the north, down the street from where we lived My hair chopped short, none of my clothes to be found Dumped in a garbage can, my brother knew but said nothing, bound As he was to silence by my parents who threatened him as well You talk to your sister, you’ll go to hell He more frightened than me, scared to act out So he vacuumed their floor and at me began to shout You prostitute, why are you so mean to Dad You’re a piece of shit, a troublemaker, badder than bad We were living in London by then, two years and eleven months After first arriving at the town on a Scottish coast full of drunks Was it one man, or two or three or four When the second baby came knocking at my door This time I made sure my father didn’t find out And the man I’d done it with, he barely made it out Of work in time to visit me down south So rushed was he to be out of this fix Arrived late and left again in a jiff I wanted to be loved I wanted to be liked So like any other girl looking for a home Through sex I thought I’d find a place to belong But all I found was sex, and still had nowhere to go So I popped more, drank more, smoked more, and never said no |