Nothing to lose

written in reaction to the resignation of Judge Lowell Goddard from the CSA inquiry

 

Don’t give me hope

then turn out the light.

Trust is for dreamers,

that thief in the night.

My dreams, they were shattered.

They lie in the dust.

You might think I lie.

Think that, if you must.

Where has it come from,

this black, bile-drenched spew?

Wasn’t there at my birth,

I was shame-less, like you.

 

So don’t give me hope.

There’s no friendly light,

when real monsters strike

in dead of the night.

No one to hear you,

protect who you are,

leaving you slashed with

this festering scar.

It screams out for hope.

It screams for the light,

but no saviour comes,

no justice, no right.

 

And so it goes on,

this great suffocation.

There’ll be some grand words,

self-justification.

But justice is deaf.

It serves those with power,

the ones who can hide

in their fortified tower.

'No one will listen

to nutjobs', they think,

'Who wants to hear stories

from people who stink?'

 

Who’ll wade through darkness,

the stench and the shit?

Who’s nothing to lose?

Who’ll stay in the pit?

Who’ll see it right through,

no matter the cost?

It's not about winning,

We've already lost.

We've lost our self-worth.

We have no desires

even when barristers

brand us as liars.

 

So don’t give me hope,

no tricks of the light.

I’ve nothing to lose,

I lost all that night.

 

Susan Shooter, August 2016

What's New

Magazine article

'Is there a vaccuum of theological diagnosis in church responses to sexual abuse?'

in CITYtheology

Winter 2022/32

(link to talk)

Print | Sitemap
© Susan Shooter