FIONNA INWARD ALLEN

With eyes like knives he stares at you.
“He’s damaged goods”, “One for the Pru”.
Those eyes, they glint, they call you names,
intent on seeing your nerves in flames.
 

“He can’t be trusted”, “That lad’s bad news”.
The kid that gives your heart the blues
on Sunday evenings sat round the table
whilst he lives out his sorry fable
 

of beats and fists and rooms of red
whilst you tuck your kids into bed.
The words of horror on his tongue
that change a room from right to wrong.
 

His dad, they say’s, the one to blame,
the author of that family’s pain.
Whose frightful crimes can’t be repeated,
and a son who acts like a dog mistreated.
 

He gave you a smile, just once. You kept it;
a souvenir of a boy neglected.
He knew it was a slip-up as soon as it shone
and packed it away, forever. Gone.
 

That gun he sketches on the page,
the nib pressed tight from all that rage.
It will go off, just wait and see.
Its trigger pointing at some poor nobody.

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                                 *

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With eyes like knives I stare at you.
You think you’ll win? You don’t know who
you’re messing with. I’ve got all day.
I’m fierce at this creepy play.

I know you hate me, they always do.
But you hate me ‘cause I want you to.
Your praise is insincerity.
Your chocolate bars don’t work on me.

And when that woman comes to chat
about back home and this and that,
I keep my eyes away from her
in case she sees it hiding there.

What will she see? Not telling you.
Instead I’ll turn your classroom blue
with racist chants and sex and violence
until you scream at me for silence.

I like it loud. Need it disturbing.
Keep scowling bitch – your smile’s unnerving.
Don’t give my brain a second’s breath
‘cause it’s quietness that scares me half to death.

I need to keep things fast and moving,
That gun I sketch is kind of soothing.
The ink I stab into your page,
lets out the screams, draws out the rage.

But let’s be honest, when I’m older,
when the world has left me harder, colder.
When the women I’ve loved are black and blue
I’m hardly gonna think of you.

Except that month when no one comes:
the prison guard turns down his thumbs.
I’m back in my room watching TV
and I wonder, do you remember me?

​

(2015)

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