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