Sister Night threatened to kick both Turquoise and me out if we didn’t go to see a ‘Doctor’ with her.
Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – My big secret.
I never told Mum and Dad and so they happily thought that I was well cared for by Sister Night; until now, it remained my biggest secret. But wait there’s more!
(Minute-style poem)
When love is lost, revenge is hate,
Which will berate,
With cruel taunts,
A hurt that haunts! But wait there’s more!
His eyes beamed over me like spotlights, he cracked a lascivious grin and his hand grabbed my breast.
Comments about this post on ABC 500 words – A test of courage.
I met Sister Night, and soon after became her favourite girl. After Father Fatty gave me a private catechism lesson, he chose Sister Night to be my godmother and I was baptised.
As study became harder as the course went on, I couldn’t find time to go out or talk with Sister anymore. I wasn’t concerned then as I thought Sister needed time for the new refugee girls; I wasn’t very sensitive to Sister Night’s maternal need of feeling needed and loved, so Sister began verbally and psychologically bullying me. When I stood up for myself, she told me to move out. I begged a priest who frequented the house to find me accommodation and thus I left the communal house to live at the residence of a Catholic order. But wait there’s more!
(Tyburn-style poem)
Solemn,
Lonesome,
Fearsome,
Loathsome,
A priest with the solemn, lonesome hands
In the plot with fearsome, loathsome strands.
Image credit
by michael davis-burchat.
Things may have turned out differently had I was given my own safe space when I arrived in Australia as a refugee.
Comments about this post on ABC Open DRUM – Living alone.
April 1984, I arrived in Australia and stayed at Enterprise Hostel, Springvale in Melbourne. A week later, a religious Sister took me home to a six-bedroom Burwood parish house that accommodated thirteen Catholic Vietnamese refugees and me – a Buddhist. But wait there’s more!
(Bref-double-style poem)
Comments about this post on ABC Opern DRUM – Living alone.
When the night covers the city with a dark shroud,
There was a frightened girl on an empty platform,
She is running away from her loneliness,
Yet it seems loneliness is coming to her. But wait there’s more!
A refugee's journey - Vietnam to Australia 
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