Abuse

12/03/19

I am a role model. I have to do better.

Yelling on a daily basis

at all these young faces.

Faces looking up at me,

is this who I want them to be?

Is this who I really am?

Upon the table a book slams,

constant voices speaking

around me and I’m tweaking.

I have a message for them

they just need to listen.

Look at me with your eyes!

Let me see those pupils glisten!

I arrived here with good in my heart,

but my heart’s going cold.

“Stick with it, don’t give up,”

is all that I’m told.

How am I supposed to feel

when the daily disrespect is so real?

I don’t care about the Afrikaans swears

in between compliments on my hair.

Words tend to lose meaning

when the body language is so demeaning.

I level with them and ask how to be better,

“Clap us sir,” corporal punishment to the letter.

The effects of abuse are real,

it infects and poisons the mind.

I can’t give up on them though

for so many other have left them behind.

I repeat myself,

so I can believe myself.

I won’t leave them behind.