Family Court by Laura Michiels

Family Court

A summons to my own trial

without as much as a day’s notice.

No time to prep my defence.

Or look for a barrister

willing to take on a headcase like mine.

Familiar rooms

judges withholding, stern

sitting across from me

at the dinner table.

The homey smell of cinnamon

hugs my nostrils,

clashes with the acrid atmosphere

of recrimination.

The charges:

The defendant spat bile over the curated pictures of familial bliss.

The defendant failed in her duty of ever-lasting subservience.

The defendant spent hush money on the purchase of a gaudy wardrobe.

The verdict:

Guilty as charged.

Drawn and quartered.

My gallows speech.

Pale pink balloons pulled from my gut by a grim-faced clown.

A most amusing horror-show.

Extraction of emotions

and humanity

happened a lifetime ago.

I look at the unsmiling faces

salute

shed my carmine cloak

billowing, before the mud

changes it

into an anonymous rag.