I didn´t know, why was I never told?
You wouldn´t even bother to let me know what I was doing wrong
before you would drop the straps on me,
leave me outside in the dead of the night to shiver in the cold…
Mummy, ah sorry! I will never do it again!
Just please don´t hurt me anymore,
It hurts so much… I can´t take the pain
What have I done to deserve this?
I´m I the cause of your inner turmoils, pain and anguish?
Why won´t you talk to me like a mother should to her daughter?
Why won´t you reason with me first, then beat me after?
Why do you even hit me in the first place?
Are you ashamed of me?
I´m I your biggest disgrace?
Stop it mummy! Please, stop it!
I don´t know what else to do…
I don´t know what he did, or much less why,
But please stop making me your scapegoat,
It´s not my fault daddy walked out on you
But wait… Mummy ah hear something bout you.
Please tell me it ent true…
Aunty Marie tell me ah should never say a word bout it
Not even to you!
But how could I not!
How could she expect me not to?
Ah mean, this changes everything between me and you…
Mummy…is it true?
You mean to tell me, me daddy is not really me daddy
And uncle Freddy is just “plain old Freddy”
And cousin Baldwin with the bright shiny head,
Even Ras P with he stinky dread,
And me good friend Dry-ee
All ah dem been through you?
Mummy, what you runnin, ah whore house?
What kinda mother are you?
And all these years you beating me without reason,
Not even responding to my cries or my innocent plea
Swelling up me skin with the big brown belt, soaked overnight in stale pee
I never knew you had so many secrets under lock and key!
Ah guess you forget about you big mouth sister aunty Marie
Is she that tell me how innocent you was,
When Rakim and Ezroy took you virginity down by the old well in St Thomas
For teasing them and playing you is “big woman”, just because…
She say you was barely fifteen,
She say they almost couldn´t stop the bleeding
Forgive me mummy,
For asking too much questions,
for failing too much exams with wrong answers
For trying to get ah hug from you every now and then to feel like you love me
But most of all, for reminding you of a past to which you could never let go…
Forgive me mummy, I didn´t know.
