a guy got out of his station wagon & began pissing
in front of his car head lights/ the vulgarity never
stopped/ anywhere you walked you would be
followed by insults & language from young men
that hung in the air/ we were called out to all the
time/ feeling the self worth of a slut in stilettos
walking through a mud puddle/ 'on your back
scrubber'/ 'give us a blowjob' or 'bush pig do
yarr swallow it?' 'do yar fuck?' etc etc/ what was
it they wanted?/ i turned to rachel 'they want to
annihilate us'/ yet most of the girls ignored the
comments from the passing cars & clung to
romantic ideas of love to come/ like they clung to
their handbags/ they would probably end up
marrying a guy from the area/ it was all you could
do/ cling to dreams as empty as the polluted air
you were breathing in/ it was more than disrespect/
it was outright hatred & violence/ it was a threat
to your emotional & physical survival/ i looked up
at the flapping plastic flags of the caryards/ beyond
them was the blue sky/ i couldn't afford a taxi or
bus/ i never had a cent to my name/ my skirt
blowing up followed by car horns/ always looking
over our shoulders/ our lips set firm/ fists clenched
in jean pockets/ we adopted the mean expression,
the hostile gaze & the cheap stroll/ watched people
punching each other through their car windows in
the traffic/ no-one can penetrate us/ can destroy
our vision of the way we want the world to be/ we
walked the shopping malls & to the station/ to catch
v.d. or the next train into the city/ until we were
exhausted/ but got back home in time before the
vulnerability set in/ to open the refrigerator doors
& to switch the televisions on/ this is liverpool/
the place we called 'liverhole'/ in the same way
as we called casula high school 'casula hell hole'/
the high school support system/ like an old gym
trampoline/ with faulty springs on the edge/ the
higher you jumped to reach your goals the more
risk of injury/ whether in woolworths or in school/
if you were a high achiever/ there was always
someone to bring you down/ other students to
bash you up or call you a 'goodie goodie'/ or the
teacher's report 'coral does well in her grades but
is disruptive in class/ on muck up day the school
was coated with flour & glue/ fire extinguishers
were set off/ table & chairs were thrown out the
windows/ food machines tipped over & robbed/
locks were broken & smashed/ there had been
threats from the head principal/ that our h.s.c.
would be in jeopardy/ if we attempted the muck
up day/ & that the end of school formal would be
called off/ all warnings were ignored/ the school
was vandalised/ the teachers were sold off at an
auction/ i dressed mr english up as a clown &
took him around with a dog chain around his
neck/ mr mathematics ended up down in the
agricultural dam after being stabbed by some
students with sharp pieces of stone/ he went to
liverpool hospital for tetanus shots/ we heard
miss english calling out from the quadrangle/
where she had been tied up/ as angry students
from others years began to pelt her with orange
peels & stale sandwiches/ it got too serious so
we had to untie her
