Gin and Knitting Needles.

There was violence in her legs

it resonated up her spine fed the

synapses in her brain fell from the

edges of her mouth shot from her eyes.

A stifled suppressed violence

blanketed by darkness and lore.

‘With my body I thee worship’.

She had no choice but to endure

this violation –her husband’s

want – he reads her signals all wrong

the anger. Something else she hates -

the way her body reacts wet lubricated

but reluctant-willing? Animalistic even?

He rolls off - farts and wipes himself on

grubby sheets while she quietly weeps into

her pillow, pulls down her nightgown her

knees up, as his semen runs from her and she

wants it out of her;

OUT! OUT! OUT!

This the night of my conception.

Weeks later she attempts to kill me.

Gin and Knitting needles a red hot bath

stabbing, piercing, lancinating through her

cervix, a devastated crying, weeping drunk,

sweating in bloodstained water, those long

cruel devastating, size six knitting needles.

Can’t even afford the two pounds for back

street Annie.

Yet I grew on. Another nine months gone

and she’s so very scared as Aunty Pat wipes

the sweat from her brow as this - a simple

berth in some back room naturally takes it’s

course….

“It’s a bonny lad Edna…and he’s

all right - he’ll be alright Edna, he’s ok – fine,

he’ll be alright….. he will!”

And I’m number five child, one other

dead - stillborn - there’s two more to

go and many more nights of violence

and violation. But never - never again

knitting needles or hot baths. The

occasional Gin though – call it survival

also helps with the guilt call it anaesthetic.

**“Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon him your heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto him as long as you both shall live?