Today was my first day of work at the Women’s Support Network, where Nicole and I wrote an article about our trip for the E-News and then perused their library. The following is a poem from the book “Come rain, hail, shine or snow” written by the Women’s Community Writing Group 2011-2012. It was published by the Prison Arts Foundation, which used community development funding to provide a weekly creative writing group for women in Northern Ireland on probation orders (the imprisonment of women in Northern Ireland is a big issue that the WSN focuses on). The classes were taught with the support from the Women’s Support Network, which is where I work on Mondays in City Centre.

A Lifetime and Two Birthdays Later

I

Walking through the doors
with a hanky drying my face
thinking the old me was gone forever

Hiding behind my human shield:
if I closed my eyes I couldn’t see,
so they couldn’t see me.

A question being asked.
The answer in my head;
lips clamped shut
The fear of body contact making me sweat

II

Home visit
One minute fine, the next kicking cupboards
We went to the doctors together;
heard for the first time

“I’m broken, fix me”

Assessed. appointments, appointments, appointments,
Running about
doing everything asked,
Diaries,
colour-coding,
up and down,
hot and cold
in and out
Until up and down became somewhere in between

III

Come to class rain, hail, shine or snow;
words to fix my head.
Being reflective, getting perspective;
instead of lifting a knife, lifting a laptop.
Hand on hand contact, offering one when the other was
done.
My once clamped lips rambling across the room like a
speakerphone;
volume maxed up

A lifetime and two birthdays later;
sitting exams, getting results, hanging certificates,
stepping into the old shoes I thought were lost, buried
deep beneath me,

Given a spade and helping hands I can stand up;
tell others my story

Christine