‘reparation scheme’,
head down,
tongue shut
with other
terrible teenagers.
They also tell Mămică and Tata that I must go to school
because ‘as parents’ they have a
‘Duty of Care’
and
if we are living in this country
our family
‘must adhere to the laws and rules in England.’
They say at end:
‘Is that clear? Got it?’
If not got it Tata must go to man jail
or pay heavy cash fine.
And who will be the blame?
Me, that’s who,
like all other times.
School!
Night … mare.
Just in Case
I’ve been stealing stuff for ages.
Can’t remember the first time any more,
but it was way before
I started secondary school.
Small stuff back then –
other kids’ rulers,
fags from Mum’s bag.
And I hang on to loads of the stuff I’ve nicked,
not because I’m one of those freaky hoarders
you see on TV
or anything.
It’s cos I don’t steal stuff you can sell,
nothing of any value:
I mean,
who wants to buy a pair of Top Shop tights,
cheap mascara,
gloopy nail varnish
or pencils pinched from a teacher’s desk?
I take the gear out now and then,
and I
can’t help feeling proud of all the times I got away with it
before they finally caught me.…
then caught me again and again
and gave me my very own caseworker.
There’s a knock on the door,
and before I can throw everything back into the shoebox,
Mum’s in my room.
‘I got KFC for dinner,’ she says,
then stops,
stares at the stuff
piled on the bed,
frowns.
‘What’s all that?’
‘Just some things I found,’ I say.
I chuck the stuff back into the box,
push it underneath the bed.
She rubs her forehead,
letting a load of worry trickle into her face.
Thing is,
that’s not the box she should be worried about.
See,
I’ve got a different one on top of my wardrobe.
I’ve got a box filled with supplies:
a toothbrush, tampons, spare T-shirt, socks, knickers
and a couple of crisp fivers
just in case.
Like,
just in case,
I ever need to get out of this place
in a hurry.
HIGH VIS
At reparation scheme
they make me dress in
high vis vest
in piping hot park.
Me and many criminal others
cleaning muck,
sweeping leaves,
picking up, picking up, picking up
crisp packet,
fizz can,
half kebab,
booze glass,
butt cigarettes.
The lives of the pollute people.
Breathing Down our Necks
Mum and I are watching
Jeremy Kyle
which
makes me feel way better about my life,
looking at a bunch of losers
and knowing that no matter how
horrible everything is for me,
I’m not
them;
I’m not in the gutter just yet.
‘Shouldn’t you be picking litter, Jess?’ Terry asks.
He cracks his knuckles
because he can.
‘Just Saturdays, isn’t it, Jess?’ Mum blurts out.
Terry leans on the doorframe,
sniffs
and sips at his can of beer.
‘But did I ask you, Louise?’ he says.
‘Sorry,’ Mum whispers.
She turns off the TV,
jumps up from the couch
and scurries into the kitchen.
‘I better get started on dinner.’
Terry peers down at me.
‘You know,
getting into trouble at school is one thing,
but having the police breathing down our necks
is something else.
I don’t like it.’
I nod.
‘I know.
You already told me, Terry.’
He sniffs hard.
‘You being cheeky?’ he asks.
He cracks his knuckles again.
Mum is standing behind him,
shaking her head,
her eyes wide and terrified
cos she knows that if I do anything
to annoy him,
she’ll be on the receiving end of his boot.
‘No, Terry. Sorry,’ I say.
I go to my room,
curl up on my bed
and wish it weren’t Monday,
wish I were
picking litter instead of here
in this house,
with
him.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Some Saturdays we do the job
of servant men,
when body sweats and hand sores
with hurting.
They calling this ‘Personal Development’.
‘Personal Development’ help everybody to
becoming
decent peoples again.
In park
I am part of team,
but not the same like
when I was strong member of
wrestling team in my village.
In park I am not
captain;
here I am in
Offenders Boy Team.
One Saturday
ex-Army man, Bicep Andy,
take my team to pond,
shows us giant bag of plastic,
many woods and strings.
‘Right, lads, your task is to use only
the wood, string and plastic bottles
to build a raft.’
All faces confusing.
Much puffing of air.
‘A raft?’
‘Yes, Lee, a raft,’ Bicep Andy say.
‘What for?’ other guy say.
‘Well, Rick, it’ll improve your
communication and collaboration skills.’
Bicep Andy tap Rick on back.
‘Doubt it,’ Lee say.
‘Your raft needs to take one member of your group
from this side of the pond to the other.’
Bicep Andy point to other side,
where girl team make also.
‘Whatever,’ Bill say.
I tying strings
tighter,
better.
Rick and Lee do
design control and
building of square boat.
‘Right mate, hop on,’ Bill telling to me.
And I thinking:
I could show him my skill.
Grab
flip
hold.
Learn him the respect.
But this would be very bad communications.
I jump on tiny boat.
It not float.
Faffing Around
It’s like these caseworkers pull ideas
out of their arses
and all agree
it’ll do us the world of good.
This morning I’m sitting with the other girls
whinging about
how tough it
is to be female.
Dawn reminds us
how important school is –
‘And I don’t mean sitting in the inclusion unit,
girls!’
And now here we are,
up against the boys,
but on the other side of the pond from them,
faffing around with
rope and wood
and arguing about which one of us
has to sit on the stupid raft we’re building
once it’s in the water.
Fiona goes, ‘You ain’t getting me on the Titanic.’
Jade is like, ‘The raft’s tiny, you moron.’
Fiona goes, ‘Whatevs. I ain’t doing a DiCaprio, right.’
And Jade is like, ‘Well, I got my period, innit. I can’t go swimming.’
Dawn sighs. ‘The key is cooperation.’
Fiona rolls her eyes. ‘Yeah, right.’
Jade crosses her arms over her chest.
‘You know what, Dawn,
I reckon health and safety would
be all over this raft-building bullshit.’
‘I’ll do it,’ I say, just to shut them up.
From the other side of the pond
come hoots
and whistles.
‘He got soaked, man!’ Rick shouts.
One of the boys is in the water,
his head bobbing up and down
like a beach ball.
When he comes up he shakes his hair out
like a dog,
laughs
and splashes the other boys on the bank
as though it’s nothing at all
to have fallen into the pond.
‘Who’s that?’ I ask Dawn.
‘That’s Nicu,’ she says.
‘Good egg, that one.’
WOMAN LONGING
Mămică tears because she missing her other childrens.
Daughters
back in village with tiny babies,
sons being mans of house.
I wanting to give Mămică my
super son hug,
for remember her that she have me,
her very own younger boy,
in this country.
But I am older now for
super son hug.
I watching her at table
with photos,
with tears,
with suffer.
Always she saying same thing:
‘I want all my babies in one place.’
Always she talking of return to our village;
‘I want to go home to Pata.’
That is why I only looking,
not speaking,
caressing her tearing
or
soothing her feeling.
Mămică not want to listen to
my need.
That one day my whole family can come to
visit
here.
Live
here.
Working
here.
In my new country.
When Liam Left
Liam just left.
I woke up one morning,
saw his bedroom door was open,
but not him in among the squalor
with his
bare legs dangling out of the
side of the single bed.
‘Where’s Liam?’ I asked Mum.
‘Gone.’
‘Good riddance,’ Terry said,
and I had to bite both my lips
really hard
to stop myself from saying something
like
Yeah, you did this, Terry.
Then
I left for school like normal
but didn’t go in,
hid between
the recycling bins
in the Queen’s Head car park.
And I couldn’t stop crying,
couldn’t even breathe properly,
because without Liam
I was on my own.
Completely and utterly
on
my
own.
LANGUAGE
When I hearing this
fresh English language,
I think I will be
able
never
to speaking in same tongue,
to telling my joke
or
showing my imaginings
or
being the great listening ears to peoples.
But.
English is the tough watermelon to crack,
a strange language with many weird wordings:
heart in your mouth
fall off the back of a lorry
if you pardon my French
and
too many more.
We have ways to understanding though:
Michael Jackson helping Tata with learning.
Celine Dion helping Mămică with learning.
YouTube and Jay Z helping me.
Breaking Bad helping everyone.
I working hardest than ever
to being in this England world
fluently.
I not wanting to
start school
with too much
foreign tongue.
Recording
Terry stands in front of the TV even
though I’m watching it.
I don’t shout, ‘Get out of my bloody way, Terry!’
I say sweetly, ‘You all right, Terry?’
He holds out his phone
and I go cold,
look around for Mum.
‘Film me
doing my press-ups,’ he says.
I take the phone.
‘Why?’
‘I wanna examine my technique,
you know?’
He flexes his muscles.
Rolls his neck.
I press the red button,
watch him as he hits the floor
and counts to fifty,
each press-up punctuated by a grunt:
‘One, argh, two, urgh, three, huuu, four…’
By the time he’s finished
his face is as red as a battered pizza.
He stands up all sweaty and panting,
pleased with himself.
‘How did I look?’ he asks.
‘You looked great, Terry,’ Mum says.
She’s wearing a bathrobe,
her hair hidden beneath a towel.
Terry snatches his phone from me.
‘Make me a cup of tea, Louise,’ he says,
and falling down into an armchair,
turns the TV off
and watches himself
puff and pant
all over again,
with an ugly
grin on his face.
NASTY WEATHER
My clothes is heavy with raining.
My feet squash and slip
in my shoes.
My hair stick to me like I step out of
deep blue sea.
In England it rain
all times.
Reparation scheme is zero happy when wet.
Every other delinquents
shielding under shed hut,
smoking, spitting, stone kicking,
bantering.
All delinquents except two:
me
and
girl.
Not us.
I am under umbrella tree.
Girl hide below kids’ silver sliding tube.
She seem lonely.
She seem lost.
She seem total tragic sad.
And I want to rush to her feelings,
show her my smiles,
make conversation chit-chat,
peace her mind.
Maybe tell some tale of my land,
how stars shine so bright,
how wild horse tame with one kind hand.
But
for this girl of perfect visions
I remaining under umbrella tree
and follow only with my eye.
Eyes
I know he’s watching –
Nicu,
the boy who fell in the pond
and didn’t moan about it.
But
what does he see when he looks at me?
What does anyone ever
see?
BAD SHOES
So we go to garment shop to get
a tie,
grey shirt,
clunk shoes,
and I ready for going to school.
It feel like I dressing for wedding,
and I wonder
how everyone put on these elegants all days.
School in England must be like
big song and dance
or
the military with these uniform.
Students all looking same.
And I hoping
it be more easy
now
to be one of them.
School happens on
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Friday
and
Thursday.
Phew!
School and reparation scheme my new life,
but I still don’t miss my old –
no way.
Never going back,
where people like us
always
under attack
from the rich-wealthy and those born of plenty.
Here
everyone is Romanian in all eyes,
but
back home
we are the Romani Roma gypsies
and we are kept in gutter.
No chance.
Here
with school, reparation scheme