The Bullying Game

By Gordon Whittaker

I took a snapshot of my little tot
then gently lifted her out of her cot
she was like a feather in my arms,
and oh how I fell for those baby charms.

Those small delicate fingers
and screwed up tiny toes,
the aroma of a newborn baby,
her beautiful wrinkled nose.

Now fifteen years further on,
life is certainly not the same.
My girl comes home from school
with her head hung down in shame.

Today once more she’s been the victim
of the bullying game.
Tears welled up in her beautiful blue eyes
Mum I can’t take this madness anymore she cries.

I’m going to end it once and for all, she said
It’s now a year this bullying has gone on,
believe me Mum I have sometimes wished
That I was dead..

Those words filled her Mum with fright,
she went to the bathroom and removed
all the pills to a safer place that evening.
Foreboding gripped her heart, that night.

She went lots of times to her daughter’s
bedroom to see if she was okay.
She stayed awake all of the night.
awaiting the dawn of a new day.

The new day came, her daughter arrived
home but not hanging her head in shame,
she came in the room no tears were shed.
Later she ate her tea and retired to bed.

The next day mum rang her teacher to ask
about her daughter, “ well yesterday she taught those
bullies a lesson “said the teacher, “I’ll say no
more but all three of them ended up on the floor.”

Mum replaced the phone, with a feeling of disbelief,
a weight was of her shoulders, she felt only relief.
She no longer felt down and blue, she hoped and prayed that
What she had heard was true.

Then she remembered the book in her daughters room
last week, and smiled to herself as she took a peek.
The title was “ Learn the art of self-defence, master Jujitsu.”
My little tot in the cot, she certainly has grown up a lot.
Mum burst into a fit of uncontrolable sobbing and laughter,
she later settled down, became more peaceful and mild,
she now knew she was’nt going to lose her beloved child.

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