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Open Poetry #11
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it wasn't my business.............reposted per request
| Open Poetry #11 |
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it wasn't my business.............reposted per request |
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hoot_owl_rn Member Patricius
since 1999-07-05
Posts 10750Glen Hope, PA USA 
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it wasn’t my business she was three years old with blonde hair that hung in ringlets around her small face and i couldn’t help but notice how she rarely wore shoes and how ragged her tiny ill-fitting clothes were how she never smiled and how the bruises in different stages of fading she wore like battle scars on her body i noticed it all but it wasn’t my business her mother was only 20 petite quiet and pretty she worked days at a local restaurant making tips to pay the rent and i couldn’t help but wonder how sometimes even on cloudy days she donned dark glasses or how even on the summers hottest days she wore long sleeves and a turtle neck i wondered about it all but it wasn’t my business her dad was in his 30’s and i was told he once served time for armed robbery on a local grocery store he sported a mass of tattoos as black as can be and a temper to match jobless, he stayed home all day drowning his life in the bottom of a bottle and at night through the thin plaster walls i could hear his shouts of anger cursing and fists hitting the wall as he showed his disapproval at his family i could hear it all but it just wasn’t my business and today sitting here i stare at a newspaper laying on my cluttered dinning room table and the front page story in stark black and white gives the account of how last night a mother and her 3 year old child were murdered at the hands of husband and father and i can’t help but think about how last night out of my pleasant dreams i was awoken by screams and i fittfully struggled to go back to sleep slightly disturbed by what i finally realized and i thought perhaps today i’d call social services but it really wasn’t my business or was it? What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compaired to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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| © Copyright 2000 Ruth Kephart - All Rights Reserved | |||
SEA 
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 2000-01-18
Posts 22676with you |
Hoot~ Ugh......this hurts to read and sends me back......this is why I divorced my ex.....I didn't want to be a story in the newspaper.......no, my neighbors didn't do anything.....until the very end, then one helped me......I was in Japan too. Very sad.....we all need to be involved.....it effects each and every one of us. Thank you for reposting this.  -SEA |
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Charisma
since 2000-09-30
Posts 5906lost in blue pages |
its always a dilemma to make a decision if it is not my business or it is my business...... but on the other side to know that you have neighbours who are showing their care, it might be help a bit. but we will never know the answers if we don't try to reach out our hands. wonderful poem with an important message. ((hugs)) Charisma |
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hoot_owl_rn Member Patricius
since 1999-07-05
Posts 10750Glen Hope, PA USA |
Sea...I've been there, done that too and luckily I faired better than those in the poem, but only by the grace of God. It is our business and everyone's business to report known abuse...the results of such abuse be it physical or mental are never a good thing. God bless you dear that you are one of the survivors Charisma...if we don't reach out, who will? Thank you. Hugs |
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ethome Member Patricius
since 2000-05-14
Posts 11858New Brunswick Canada |
Good point Hoot if we don't reach out, who will? I really get all emotional when I read something like this...I visualize that tiny beautiful girl (have a daughter of my own) so unhappy in the brief life that she didn't really enjoy...this is the the greatest sadness that there is....it just makes me yearn for capital punishment sometimes...I thank you for reposting this message.. ethome |
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Wilfred Yeats Member Elite
since 2000-08-04
Posts 2704Wilmington, Delaware |
you must work in pediatrics - I never see these cases - but I assure you - after reading this - I'll remember - and call - my business or not if I ever get in sight. |
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SEA
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 2000-01-18
Posts 22676with you |
A *BUMP* so more can read |
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hoot_owl_rn Member Patricius
since 1999-07-05
Posts 10750Glen Hope, PA USA |
Thank you all....not a pretty poem, but sometimes our world just isn't a pretty place. |
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