Voice

To go into The Home was to be given your voice on a spoon and told: swallow it. When they shaved our heads, our voices wilted on our tongues like cut nettles in empty cups. When they took our names away, the tiny venomous hairs of shame bored untold holes in our throats. When they insisted on silence on the birthing table, just to remind us we had sinned, the itchy hives of guilt distended, red and angry, in our bellies.

And when she said: the child of your sin is dead, my heart was an extinguished fireplace. But when I opened my mouth to cry out, I spoke only in a thin grey wisp of smoke.