Shhhh! (In Memory of Gail Louise Pumphrey and her 3 Children)

Shh…Keep it quiet…

I was the victim.

The one told by another man

A man dressed in black robes

That I had to stay married--

Married to the monster

Known as my husband.

That it was a one time occurrence;

That there was no need to save

My children from the rage:

To stop them from seeing

A loveless pairing,

For them to absorb frames of

Violence and mental abuse,

Verbal threats of what could be done.

Shh…Keep it quiet.

You told me to fight

But how could I

When I have no funds of my own?

Prisoner because I chose to be with my children

Rather than with the pay.

What can I do

When all the benefits

Leads back to—him!

Also, there's the forced blame

Placed like a yoke upon my shoulders:

That I would be the cause for

Him loosing his job.

By raising the charges,

That I would be the cause for

My children and I loosing—

Loosing out on the future judgements

That that man in the black robes decides.

It would be because of me

That we suffer

Because of his inability to pay

Because of the black mark to his spotless records—

The mark that I caused…

Shh…Keep it quiet.

Wait!

Didn't he cause that mark?

Wasn't he the cause of violence,

The cause of the bruising of my skin?

Wait!

How will we survive?

How will we live?

Shh…Keep it quiet…

or else…

Now look…

We are no more.

Do we live on

Knowing that you could have

Severed these ties

That, bound us together?

Now to the grave we are driven

A loveless pairing

Because the second time--

He took our lives…

Copyright 2007. Odessa Maxwell. All Rights Reserved.